ECONOMIC  COERCION  AS  A SUBSTITUTE 

FOR  WAR 


By 

HAROLD  WALTER  GUEST 

A.  B.,  Albion  College,  1921 


THESIS 

SUBMITTED  IN  PARTIAL  FULFILLMENT  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS 
FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF  MASTER  OF  ARTS  IN  ECONOMICS 
IN  THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  ILLINOIS,  1922 


URBANA,  ILLINOIS 


/3  7 4 13  tAf 


19  22 
G.9  38 

UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 

THE  GRADUATE  SCHOOL 


1 HEREBY  RECOMMEND  THAT  THE  THESIS  PREPARED  UNDER  MY 


SUPERVISION  BY 


ENTITLED. 


ci^ a_  * 


BE  ACCEPTED  AS  FULFILLING  THIS  PART  OF  THE  REQUIREMENTS  FOR 
THE  DEGREE  OF  _aal 


Recommendation  concurred  in* 


Committee 


on 


Final  Examination* 


'Required  for  doctor’s  degree  but  not  for  master’s 


509.398 


. ' 


• ' • . . . ■ . 


Hi 


CONTENTS . 


Chapter  I . 

Introduction . 

Chapter  II. 

The  First  Non-Import? tion  Agreement  of  the  American 
Colonies  against  Or eat  Britain. 

Chapter  III. 

The  Second  Non-Import?  tion  Agreement  of  the 

American  Colonies  against  Great  Britain. 

Chapter  IV. 

The  Third  Non- Importation  Agreement  of  the  American 
Colonies  against  Great  Britain. 

Chapter  V. 

The  Embargo  and  Non-Intercourse  Acts. 

Chapter  VI. 

The  Chinese  Boycott  of  American  Goods . 

Chapter  VII. 

The  Turkish  Boycott  of  Austro-Hungarian  Goods. 

Chapter  VIII. 

Some  Other  Cases. 

Chapter  IX. 

Conclusions . 

Bibliography . 

r 


CHAPTER  I.  INTRODUCTION. 


"The  sentiment  against  war  has  too  often  been  dissipated 
in  rhapsodic  visions  of  Utopia, " says  Robert  Goldsmith  in  the  in- 
troduction to  his  book  "A  League  to  Enforce  Peace."1 2  He  might 
have  added  that  prior  to  1914  few  writers  of  the  twentieth  century 
on  this  subject  indulged  in  much  of  anything  else.  The  great 

bulk  of  the  deluge  of  peace  literature  which  flooded  the  -world  at 
that  time  was  of  a maudlin,  myopic  type  based  on  hopes  rather  than 
upon  actual  conditions  in  the  world.  The  outbreak  of  the  World 
War  in  1914  put  an  end  to  all  these  happy  dreams,  but  as  the 
struggle  went  on,  a new  philosophy  of  peace  began  to  evolve;  men 
began  to  believe  that  out  of  the  struggle  would  emerge  a new  order 
in  which  co-operation  among  nations  would  take  the  place  of  the 
jealousies  of  the  past,  and  international  anarchy  would  give  way  to 
some  kind  of  international  government.  "The  world  will  never  be 
again  what  it  has  been,"  said  President  Wilson^  in  the  early  days 
of  American  participation  in  the  war,  and  millions  of  men  and  wo- 
men all  over  the  world  believed  him  with  a hope  and  faith  born  of 
suffering;  believed  that  at  the  close  of  the  struggle  steps  would 
be  taken  tov/ards  creating  machinery  that  would  make  possible  inter- 
national co-operation  for  the  preservation  of  world  peace. 

To  meet  this  expectation  of  the  people  of  the  world,  the 
League  of  Nations  was  planned  and  its  constitution  written  at  the 
Council  of  Versailles.  Among  other  important  features  provided 
for  in  the  organization  of  the  League  is  the  Permanent  Court  of 


1 Goldsmith,  Robert:  A League  to  Enforce  Peace,  p.xix. 

2 Ibid . , p. 86  . 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2016 


https://archive.org/details/economiccoercionOOgues 


» 


2 

Justice.1  In  case  a question  arises  which  the  disputants  do  not 
■ wish  to  refer  to  this  court  or  to  a board  of  arbitration,  it  may  be 
submitted  to  the  Council,  but  some  type  of  arbitration  must  be  tried 
jj  "The  members  of  the  League  agree  that  they  will  carry  out  in  full 
good  faith  any  award  that  may  be  rendered,  and  that  they  will  not 
resort  to  war  against  a Member  of  the  League  which  complies  there- 
with."^ In  case  any  member  of  the  League  does  resort  to  war  con- 
trary to  its  covenants,  "it  shall  ioso  facto  be  deemed  to  have 
committed  an  act  of  war  against  all  other  Members  of  the  League, 

I  which  hereby  undertake  immediately  to  subject  it  to  the  severance 
of  all  trade  or  financial  relations,  the  prohibition  of  all  inter- 
course between  their  nationals  and  the  nationals  of  the  covenant- 
breaking State,  and  the  prevention  of  all  financial,  commercial,  or 
personal  intercourse  between  the  nationals  of  the  covenant-breaking 
State  emd  the  nationals  of  any  other  State,  whether  a Member  of  the 
League  or  not."^  In  case  these  measures  fail  to  bring  the  reca-1- 
citrant  state  to  terms,  more  forceful  means  may  be  employed  to  ac- 
complish that  end. 

The  question  that  suggests  itself  at  this  point  is,  To 
what  extent  caul  economic  pressure  be  depended  upon  as  a means  of 
coercing  an  offending  state?  The  purpose  of  this  study  is  to 
supply  an  answer  to  that  question.  During  the  tariff  debates  of 
1319,  John  Tyler,  then  a young  representative  from  Virginia,  stood 
at  his  desk  in  the  House  of  Repres entatives  and  declared  the  idea 
that  we  must  become  independent  of  other  nations  "a  theory  which 

1 Covenant  of  the  Leayue  of  Nations.  Article  XIV. 

2 Ibid.,  Article  XIII. 

3 Ibid.,  Article  XVI. 


- 


aims  to  subvert  the  ordinances  of  heaven  itself."  He  then  went  on 

to  show  that  in  the  natural  state  of  affairs  man  is  dependent  upon 
man  and  nation  upon  nation.  Then  why  should  Congress  consider 
enacting  legislation  which  would  attempt  to  annul  the  very  laws  of 
nature  and  of  Providence?^  Whatever  the  value  of  this  idea  as  an 
argument  against  the  principle  of  protective  tariffs,  its  value  as 
a statement  of  the  interdependence  of  nations  will  go  unquestioned, 
and  it  is  upon  this  economic  dogma  that  the  idea  of  economic  co- 
ercion of  nations  must  rest.  Long  before  man  was  wise  enough  to 
make  records  of  his  doings,  he  was  engaged  in  the  exchange  of  goods 
and  services  with  his  fellows,  and  out  of  this  trade  between  indiv- 
iduals grew  trade  between  regions,  and,  as  nations  developed,  be- 

p 

tween  nations. 

As  this  interregional  or  international  commerce  developed, 
economic  interdependence  of  nations  also  developed  at  equal  pace. 
Improvements  in  transportation  facilities  and  in  business  organiz- 
ation have  accelerated  this  movement,  and  today  we  speak  of  world 
highways,  world  markets,  and  world  corporations.  Today  nations 
are  dependent  upon  international  trade  for  even  the  necessities  of 
life.  John  Bakeless  writes:  "The  great  industrial  state  --  and 
every  great  power  in  Europe  is  an  industrial  state  in  this  sense  -- 
must  look  beyond  its  bounderies  not  only  for  the  food  that  feeds 
its  citizens,  but  also  for  the  food  that  feeds  its  mills.  There 

1 Annals  of  Congress,  vol.36,  p.1952. 

2 See  Bishop  Huet's  Histoire  du  Commerce . 


4 


is  not  a state  in  Europe  that  does  not  look  beyond  its  own  borders 
for  food,  raw  materials,  and  markets.1 

"Though  political  internationalism  has  not  gone  very  far," 
writes  J.  A.  Hobson,  "economic  internationalism  has.  The  whole 
material  and  moral  basis  of  modern  life  is  laid  in  a most  elaborate 
network  of  commercial,  physical  and  personal  communications , by 
which  the  members  of  all  advanced  states  have  been  brought  into 
close  and  continual  co-operation  for  many  of  the  essential  services 
and  activities.  To  withdraw  from  these  communications , or  in  any 
way *to  weaken  them,  would  be  a signal  damage  to  the  life  even  of 
the  French  people,  who  are  more  self-sufficient  for  the  essentials 
of  life,  economic  and  moral,  than  any  other  great  European  nation. 

The  entire  body  of  our  economic  system,  on  its  productive 

and  consumptive  sides,  has  been  nourished  upon  the  freest  available 
access  to  all  markets,  all  national  supplies,  all  economic  oppor- 
tunities throughout  the  world."2  In  short,  the  time  is  rapidly 
drawing  nea.r  when  our  planet  can  be  said  to  be  an  economic  unit. 

There  are  several  instances  in  the  annals  of  modern 
history  when  the  exertion  of  economic  pressure  has  been  used  by 
one  nation  against  another.  The  plan  of  this  study  is  to  examine 
some  of  these  cases,  as  far  as  possible  discover  the  effects  in 
the  countries  against  which  the  pressure  was  directed,  and  then 
attempt  to  draw  some  conclusions  as  to  this  means  of  coercion 

1 Ba k e 1 e s s , John:  The  Economic  Causes  of  Mode rn  Wars , p . 2 0 . 

2 Hobson,  J.  A.  : Democracy  after  the  Y,ra.r.  p.197. 


5 


among  nations.  The  standard  by  which  the  success  of  these  methods 
will  be  measured  in  each  case  will  not  be  how  near  to  the  point  of 
starvation  the  people  of  the  offending  nation  were  brought,  but  the 
amount  of  satisfaction  the  offended  nation  was  able  to  obtain  in 
the  form  of  redress  of  grievances.  This  is  usually  the  standard 
by  which  we  judge  whether  a war  is  successful  or  unsuccessful,  and 
it  is  the  only  fair  standard  that  can  be  applied  here. 


The  pacific  blockade,  which  resembles  the  subject  under 
discussion  in  that  it  cuts  off  an  offending  nation  from  intercourse 
with  other  countries,  will  not  be  considered  in  this  study  since 
the  majority  of  writers  on  International  Law  define  it  as  pacific 
in  name  only . 1 Some  show  of  force  must  be  exhibited  against  per- 


1 The  following  quotations  in  support  of  this  conclusion  are 
taken  from  A.  E.  Hogan's  Pacific  Blockade: 

Bonf ils  --  Manuel  de  droit  international  public  (4th  ed.,  edit- 
ed by  Fanchelle,  I905)  par. 993:  "Au  fond,  c ' est  bel  et  bien  un 
acte  de  guerre,  un  fait  d ' hostilite . " 

Calvo  --  par. 1859:  "Tout  d'abord,  le  blocus  pacifique  nous 
semble  un  acte  incontes tablemen t agressif,  hostile  et  portant 
gravement  attient  aus  droits  imprescriptibles  de  tout  6tat  inde- 
pendent; en  un  mot,  un  acte  de  guerre." 

Fanchille  --  p.3S:  "Le  blocus  ne  peut  exister  qu'en  temps  de 
guerre,  il  ne  peut  pas  y avoir  de  blocus  en  temps  de  paix;  le 
pretendus  blocus  pacifiques  n' existent  pas." 

MM.  Funck-Brentano  et  Sorel  --  Precis  du  droit  des  gens  (1337) 

tone  iii,  p.40S:  "Le  blocus  pacifique  ....  constitue,  sous 
quelque  forme  qu'il  soit  pr£sente,  un  veritable  acte  de  guerre." 
C-essner  --  Le  droit  des  neutres  sur  mer  (1st  ed. , Berlin,  1365), 
p.215:  "En  effet  1 ' £tablissement  d'un  blocus  £tant  l'emploi  de 

la  force  est  un  acte  d'hostilit^  qui  constitue  (l'£tat) 

en  6tat  de  guerre  . 11 

Eys  --  La  guerre  maritime  (Bruselles  et  Leipzig,  1381)  p.69: 

"Le  blocus  est  un  acte  de  guerre.  Le  terme  blocus  pacifique 
implique  ainsi  contradiction." 

MM.  Pistoye  et  Duverdy  --  Traite  des  prises  maritime  (1855), 
p.37o:  "On  n's.  pas  declare  la  guerre,  mais  on  la  fait  reel- 
ement . " 

A.  J.  Balfour  speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  question 
of  the  Venezuelan  blockade  said:  "I  think  it  is  very  likely 
that  the  United  States  will  think  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as 
a pacific  blockade,  and  I personally  take  the  same  view.  Evi- 


6 


persons  and  other  objects  outside  the  jurisdiction  of  the  nation 
attempting  the  blockade,  otherwise  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as 
enforcing  it;  and  as  soon  as  the  suggestion  of  force  enters,  the 
term  'pacific'  no  longer  applies. 

Necessarily  much  that  is  of  a historical  nature  must  be 
given  in  presenting  the  several  cases  chosen.  However  the  recital 
of  well-known  and  generally  accepted  facts  of  history  will  be  re- 
duced to  a minimum,  and  attention  will  be  concentrated  on  evidence 
showing  the  conditions  brought  about  by  the  exercise  of  economic 
pressure. ^ As  pointed  out  earlier  in  the  chapter,  conditions 
themselves  will  not  be  taken  as  a criterion  of  the  success  of  econ- 
omic pressure  except  as  they  serve  to  bring  a nation  to  the  point 
where  it  is  willing  to  make  concessions  to  the  aggrieved  nation. 

If  a nation  must  be  brought  to  the  point  of  starvation  before  sat- 
isfaction can  be  secured  from  it,  economic  coercion  is  little,  if 
any,  better  than  war.  Thus  there  are  two  questions  to  which 
answers  are  sought  in  this  study:  Does  economic  coercion  function 
as  a means  of  bringing  an  offending  nation  to  terms  instead  of  re- 
sorting to  war?  and,  Does  economic  coercion  make  a satisfactory 
substitute  for  war? 

dently  a blockade  does  involve  a state  of  war . " 

Hogan  himself  says:  "As  matters  stand  it  depends  wholly  on  the 
action  of  the  blockaded  state  whether  a blockade  shall  be  con- 
sidered as  warlike  or  pacific." 

1 The  bibliography  gives  a list  of  works  consulted  for  the 

general  historical  facts  of  the  incidents  from  American  history. 


7 


CHAPTER  II.  THE  FIRST  NON- IMPORTATION  AGREEMENT . 

The  direct  cause  of  the  first  of  the  non- importation 
associations  in  the  English  colonies  in  America  v/as  the  Stamp  Act 
of  1765,  which  provided  that  every  legal  or  commercial  paper  must 
bear  a stamp  procurable  from  a duly  authorized  agent  of  the  British 
Empire.  This  was  the  first  time  that  the  mother  country  had 
attempted  to  levy  internal  taxes  upon  them,  and  in  an  outburst  of 
indignation  committees  of  correspondence  and  non- importation 
associations  were  formed  in  the  four  leading  commercial  colonies: 
New  York,  Massachusetts,  Pennsylvania,  and  Rhode  Island.  The 
policy  of  non- importation  did  not  really  get  underway  until  about 
the  middle  of  October  ( 1765) , although  the  objectionable  act  had 
been  passed  in  the  spring,  but  the  news  of  the  boycott  had  no 
sooner  reached  England  and  Scotland  than  its  effects  began  bo  be 
felt  among  the  merchant  and  trading  classes.  Edmund  Burke,  writ- 
ing of  this  period,  said,  'The  trading  interests  of  England  lay 
under  the  most  dreadful  anxiety  which  it  ever  felt," ^ and  the 
Annual  Register  for  that  year  declared,  "Much  an  these  restrictive 
laws  tended  to  hurt  the  British  North  American  colonies,  they 
tended  still  more  to  hurt  Great  Britain  herself. "- 

The  Annual  Register  for  the  following  year  began  the 
discussion  of  the  American  situation  with  the  following  far  from 
cheerful  picture:  "At  the  conclusion  of  our  last  volume,  we  saw 
the  nation  involved  in  the  most  distressful  circumstances  that 
could  well  be  imagined;  our  manufacturers  at  a stand,  commerce  al- 

1 Writings  and  Speeches  of  Edmund  Burke,  vol.1,  p.391* 

2 Annua 1 Register.  1765,  p.24. 


. 


3 


□ost  totally  annihilated,  provisions  extravagantly  dear,  and  a 
numerous  populace  unemployed,  without  the  means  of  procuring  a 
livelihood.  Such  and  so  gloomy  was  the  prospect  that  opened  at 
home  upon  us  along  with  the  year."1  Writing  about  the  same  time, 
a writer  using  the  pseudonym  of  Anti-Se janus  said:  "There  never  was 
a period  in  English  history,  when  the  affairs  of  this  kingdom  were 
in  a more  desperate  state  than  at  present. 

Mint  rbotham  in  his  "View  of  the  American  United  States" 
describes  the  situation  as  follows:  "These  restrictions,  which  the 
colonists  had  voluntarily  imposed  on  themselves,  were  so  well  ob- 
served, that  multitudes  of  artificers  in  England  were  reduced  to 
great  distress,  and  some  of  their  most  flourishing  manufactories 

were,  in  a great  measure,  at  a stand. "3y  suspending 

their  future  purchases  till  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  the  col- 
onists made  it  the  interest  of  merchants  and  manufacturers  to  sol- 
icit for  that  repeal.  They  had  usually  taken  off  so  great  a pro- 
portion of  British  manufactures,  that  the  sudden  stoppage  of  all 
their  orders,  amounting  annually  to  several  million  sterling,  threw 
some  thousands  in  the  Mother  Country  out  of  employment,  and  induced 
them,  from  a regard  to  their  own  interest,  to  advocate  the  measures 
wished  for  by  America."^ 

Petition  after  petition  poured  in  to  Parliament  praying 

1 Annual  Rep;ister.  1756,  p.31. 

2 In  t er  e s 1 1 nm  Let t e r s . voi . 2 , p . 60  . 

3 Winterbotham,  W. : vol . 1 , p.440. 

4 Ibid.,  p.439. 


9 


its  intervention  and  the  repeal  of  the  legislation  that  was  at  the 
bottom  of  all  the  trouble.  Archibald.  Henderson  in  a.  letter  to 
Burke  describes  the  "particular  hardships"  of  the  merchants  of 
Glasgow  saying  their  "very  being  as  merchants  is  at  stake."1 2 3  In 
a letter  to  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham,  Sir  George  Saville  spoke  of 
the  flood  of  petitions  as  follows:  "You  can  find  out  what  hurts 

them.  They  speak  as  ignorant  men.  Our  trade  is  hurt. What  the 

devil  have  you  been  a doin-G?  For  our  part,  we  dont  pretend  to 
understand  your  Politics  and  Ameri can  matters , but  our  trade  is 
hurt:  pray  re  ,iedy  it,  and  a plague  of  you  (sic ) if  you  wont." 

Horace  Walpole  wrote:  "The  situation  of  our  manufacturers 
was  most  calamitous.  Nottingham  had  dismissed  a thousand  hands; 
Leicester,  Leeds,  and  other  towns  in  proportion.  Three  in  ten  of 
the  labourers  of  Ranches ter  were  discharged.  The  trade  of  England 
was  not  only  stopped,  but  in  danger  of  being  lost.  If  trade 
suffered,  land  would  suffer  in  Its  turn.  Petitions  would  have 
been  sent  from  every  trading  town  in  England,  but  that  they  appre- 
hended that  the  very  hearing  of  their  petitions  would  delay  the 
repeal . " " 

Merchants,  tradesmen,  and  manufacturers  of  London,  Leeds, 
Lancaster,  Manchester,  Leicester,  Bradford  in  Wiltshire,  Frome, 
Birmingham,  Coventry,  Maclesfield,  Wolverhampton,  Stourbridge, 
Dudley,  Minehead,  Taunton,  Witney,  Newcastle  upon  Tyne,  Glasgow, 

1 Fit zwilliam  and  Bourke,  ed.:  Correspondence  of  Edmund  Burke, 

vol. 1 , p.253  . 

2 Albemarle,  Earl  of:  'Memoirs  of  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham. 

vol. 2,  p.253. 

3 Walpole,  Horace:  Memoirs  of  George  III,  vol. 2,  p.2lC. 


1C 


Chippenham,  and  Nottingham  are  all  listed  in  the  proceedings  of 
Parliament  as  petitioners  for  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  "all 
complainihg  of  a great  decay  in  the  trade  to  the  North  American 
colonies,  owing  to  the  late  obstructions  and  embarrassments  laid 
thereon,  and  praying  relief."^  The  Annual  Register  does  not 
attempt  to  compile  a list  of  the  towns  and  boroughs  from  which 
petitions  emanated,  but  declares  that  petitions  were  received  "from 
most  of  the  trading  and  manuf acturing  towns  of  the  kingdom."^ 

These  petitions  are  represented  as  saying  regarding  their  trade 
"that  nothing  less  than  its  utter  ruin  was  apprehended  without  the 
immediate  interposition  of  parliament,"  and  that  "the  petitioners 
were,  by  these  unhappy  events,  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  applying 
to  the  house,  in  order  to  secure  themselves  and  their  families  from 
impending  ruin;  to  prevent  a multitude  of  manufacturers  from  becom- 
ing a burden  to  the  community,  or  else  seeking  their  bread  in  other 
countries,  to  the  irretrievable  loss  of  the  kingdom. 

Finally,  the  importunity  of  the  trading,  manufacturing, 
and  commercial  classes  won  out,  and  the  Stamp  Act  was  repealed. 

The  joy  of  the  people  at  the  news  of  the  repeal  shows  something  of 
the  unpopularity  of  the  act  because  of  the  effect  it  had  had  upon 
industry.  The  Annual  Register  declares  that  the  passage  of  the 
bill  repealing  the  Stamp  Act  "caused  more  universal  joy,  throughout 
the  British  Dominions,  than  perhaps  any  other  that  can  be  remember- 

,,4 

ed.  V.alpole  tells  how  the  crowrds  gathered  around  General  Conway, 

1 Parliamentary  History  of  England,  vol . 1 6 , p . 1 35 • 

2 Annual  Register,  1766,  p.35* 

3 Ibid . , p . 36 . 

4 Ibid  . , p. 46  . 


1 1 

who  had  been  one  of  the  leaders  in  Parliament  that  had  worked  for 
the  repeal  of  the  act,  and  how  they  took  off  their  hats  to  Pitt 
"and  followed  his  chair  home  with  shouts  and  benedictions . " As 
for  G-renville,  who  had  led  in  opposing  the  repeal,  "the  crowd  press- 
ed on  him  with  scorn  and  hisses."^ 

There  was  ringing  of  bells,  drinking  the  health  of  the 
King  and  Queen,  banqueting,  and  illuminating  of  buildings,  all  be- 
cause "the  merchant  as  well  as  the  mechanic  may  hope  once  more  to 
be  able  to  pay  their  just  debts,  and  the  manufacturers  be  enabled  to 
set  the  poor  to  work,  who  have  been  too  considerable  a time  quite 
destitute  of  work , as  well  as  the  common  necessaries  of  life."^ 

"A  body  of  upwards  of  two  hundred  members  of  the  house  of  Commons 
carried  up  the  bill  to  the  house  of  Peers  for  repealing  the  Amer- 
ican stamp-duty  act;  an  instance  of  such  a number  going  up  with  a 
single  bill,  had  not  been  known  in  the  memory  of  the  oldest  man . 
Edmund  Burke  received  a letter  signed  by  the  merchants  of  Lancaster 
thanking  him  for  his  services  in  "removing  obstructions  that  lay  in 
the  via.y  of  commerce.  "4 

The  wording  of  the  preamble  of  the  act  which  repealed  the 
Stamp  Act  is  a frank  confession  that  "the  continuance  of  the  said 
act  would  be  attended  with  many  inconveniences  and  may  be  productive 
of  consequences  greatly  detrimental  to  the  commercial  interests  of 
these  kingdoms. "D  Walpole  says  that  "though  Lord  Rockingham  with 

1 Walpole,  Horace:  "Temolrs  of  G-eorge  III,  vol.2,  p.212. 

2 Annual  Register,  1766,  p.o8. 

3 Ibid.,  p.72. 

4 Correspondence  of  Edmund  Burke,  vol . 1 , p . 1 04  . 

5 Robertson:  Select  Statutes  Cases  and  Documents , p . 2 4 4 . 


■ 


12 


childish  arrogance  and  indiscretion  vaunted  in  the  palace  itself 
that  he  had  carried  the  repeal  against  the  King,  Queen,  Princess- 
dowager,  Duke  of  York,  Lord  Bute,  the  Tories,  the  Scotch,  and  the 
Opposition  (and  it  was  true  he  h--d),  yet  in  reality  it  wf.s  the 
clamour  of  trade,  of  the  merchants,  and  of  the  manuf acturing  towns, 
that  had  borne  down  all  opposition."1  As  Burke  put  it,  the  Stamp 
Act  "was  not  repealed  in  order  to  double  our  trade  in  that  year,  as 
everybody  knows  (whatever  some  merchants  might  have  said) , but  lest 
in  that  year  we  should  have  no  trade  at  all."2 

Thus  in  less  than  six  months  from  the  time  when  the  colon 
ists  began  their  policy  of  non-importation,  they  had  obtained  their 
objective  --  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act.  There  is  little  doubt 
but  what  the  repealing  act  would  have  been  passed  still  sooner  had 
the  commercial  and  industrial  elements  of  the  population  been  fully 
represented  in  Parliament  as  they  are  today.  But,  as  is  well 
known  to  students  of  English  history,  the  aristocracy  and  landed 
gentry  had  a virtual  monopoly  on  the  seats  of  Parliament,  and  re- 
presentation of  the  commercial  and  industrial  classes  was  usually 
incidental  and  indirect.  This,  coupled  with  the  fact  that  of  the 
thirteen  colonies  only  four  participated  in  the  non-importation 
movement,  should  make  the  victory  of  the  colonists  strike  one  as 
being  all  the  more  remarkable  and  unqualified.  Judging  by  the 
standard  laid  down  in  the  Introduction,  there  can  be  little  doubt, 
if  any,  of  the  success  of  this  case  of  economic  coercion  of  one 
nation  by  another. 

1 Walpole,  Horace:  Yemoirs  of  G-eorge  III,  vol.2,  p.2lt. 

2 Writings  and  Speeches  of  Edmund  Burke,  vol.1,  p.4Cl. 


- 

" 


13 


CHAPTER  III.  THE  SECOND  NON-  IMPORTATION  AG-REEIIENT  . 

With  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  public  opinion  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  was  that  there  would  be  no  more  attempts  to 
tax  the  American  colonies,  but  events  shaped  themselves  otherwise. 
The  cabinet  had  Pitt  as  its  nominal  head,  but  his  inexplicable  ill- 
ness made  it  impossible  for  him  to  take  the  active  leadership. 

With  the  Duke  of  Grafton  acting  for  Pitt,  no  definite  policy  was 
followed  but  things  were  left  to  drift  as  they  would.  The  one 
thing  upon  which  the  cabinet  seemed  to  have  signs  of  agreement  was 
that  to  attempt  to  tax  the  colonies  a.  second  time  would  be  the 
height  of  folly,  and  all  suggestions  of  that  nature  were  studiously 
avoided.  However,  in  an  ill-starred  moment  Townshend,  who  was  at 
the  head  of  the  exchequer,  indiscreetly  boasted  in  Parliament  that 
he  knew  how  to  get  a.  revenue  from  the  colonies  "without  offence." 

To  the  dismay  of  the  rest  of  the  Ministry,  Grenville  immediately 
challenged  him  to  commit  himself,  and  this  Townshend  did.  The 
only  now  that  the  situation  could  be  relieved  would  be  for  the  head 
of  the  cabinet  to  demand  Townshend' s resignation,  but  C-rafton  did 
not  think  that  he  possessed  that  much  authority  and  Pitt's  where- 
abouts were  unknown  at  that  time,  so  Townshend  was  permitted  to 
bring  in  a bill  providing  for  import  duties  on  all  shipments  into 
the  colonies  of  tea,  glass,  paper,  and  paints.''  This  bill  was 
passed  by  both  houses  of  Parliament  and  received  the  King's  assent 
in  May,  1767 .1  2 

When  the  news  of  the  passing  of  this  new  act  reached  the 

1 See  the  Autobiography  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  pps . 126-1 2C. 

2 Townshend's  death  occurred  four  months  later. 


' 


' 


14 


colonies,  there  was  an  Immediate  outburst  of  indignation  and  pro- 
test, and  gradually  the  non- importation  associations  were  revived 
until  by  the  beginning  of  1769  the  merchants  and  people  of  nine  of 
the  colonies  were  co-operating  in  the  movement.  The  effects  were 
soon  felt  in  England  and  Scotland  as  before,  and  those  who  had 
opposed  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act,  on  the  grounds  that  a surrend- 
er to  the  colonies  at  that  time  would  wreaken  their  authority  in 
dealing  with  them  in  the  future,  lost  no  opportunities  to  remind 
the  opposition  of  their  prophesies  of  two  or  three  years  before. 

Thomas  Whately  wrote  in  a letter  to  G-eorge  Grenville:  "Mr . 
Maitland  tells  me,  that  many  who  were  forv/ard  for  repealing  the 
Stamp  Act,  confess  now  that  you  were  in  the  right  from  the  begin- 
ning, and  when  they  exclaimed  against  the  Americans,  he  bid  them 
thank  themselves,  v/hose  weakness  had  encouraged  the  insolence  of 
the  colonies,  the  truth  of  which  reproach  they  admitted."1 2  The 
King  wrote  in  the  sue  strain  in  a letter  to  Lord  North:  "All  men 
seem  now  to  think  that  the  fatal  compliance  in  1766  has  encouraged 
the  Americans  annually  to  encrease  in  their  pretensions  to  that 
thorough  independency  which  one  state  has  of  another,  but  which  is 
quite  subversive  of  the  obedience  which  a colony  owes  to  its  mother 
country . "- 

Barlow  Trecothick,  who  had  achieved  considerable  popular- 
ity because  of  his  activity  as  a leader  in  securing  petitions  from 
the  commercial  and  manuf acturing  towns  praying  for  the  repeal  of 
the  Stamp  Act,  was  elected  to  the  House  of  Commons  from  the  City  of 


1 Smith,  W.  J.,  ed.:  Grenville  Papers,  vol.4,  p.337. 

2 Donne , W.  B. , ed . : Correspondence  of  George  III  with  Lord 

North,  vol . 1 , p.164 . 


15 


London  in  the  elections  of  1768,  and  became  one  of  the  leaders 
there  in  demanding  the  repeal  of  the  Townshend  Acts  and  working  in 
other  w ays  for  their  end.  "Alderman  Trecothick  still  persists  in 
endeavoring  to  get  an  application  from  the  merchants  for  the  repes.l 
of  the  duties,"  wrote  Whately  to  G-renville  as  early  in  the  movement 
as  January,  1769.^ 

However,  there  was  not  the  flood  of  petitions  pouring  in 
such  as  had  forced  the  Ministry  and  Parliament  to  action  in  1766. 
Lord  North  had  prophesied  in  October,  1768,  that  there  would  be  a 
paucity  of  petitions  on  this  occasion,  and  gave  as  a reason  for  his 
belief  that  the  Americans  were  not  living  up  to  their  non- import- 
ation doctrines,  but  were  securing  English  goods  through  secret 
0 

commissioners.  However  there  seems  to  have  been  little  sound 
basis  for  this  line  of  reasoning,  for  commerce  and  industry  we re 
depressed,  stocks  were  declining,  and  everybody  seemed  "dishearten- 

■z 

ed  and  uneasy. In  Eisset's  history  the  situation  was  described 
as  follows:  "The  British  merchants  who  traded  to  America  had  sus- 
tained immense  losses  by  the  rejection  of  their  goods;  and  appre- 
hended ruin  if  the  associations  should  continue,  presented  petit- 
ions to  Parliament,  stating  their  sufferings,  and  praying  its 
,,4 

intervention.  The  Annual  Register  declared  the  policy  of  the 

colonies  to  be  "highly  prejudicial  to': the  commercial  interests"  of 
the  mother  country,  and  gave  figures  to  prove  that  point.  In 

1 G-renville  Papers,  vol.4,  p.409. 

2 Memoirs  of  G-eorme  III,  vol.4,  p.64. 

3 G-renville  Papers , vol.4,  p . 368 . 

4 El s s etTs , ^ vol . 2 . 'p . 6 . 

5 Annual  Remister.  1768,  p.67. 


■ 


16 


1768  the  exports  from  England  to  the  colonies  had  amounted  to 

2.378.000  pounds  sterling,  while  in  1769  the  value  was  only 

1.634.000  --  a falling  off  of  744,000  pounds  sterling,  or  of  about 
thirty-one  per  cent.,  in  the  first  year  of  the  movement. 

Arguments  and  petitions  were  unnecessary  with  such  fig- 
ures staring  the  members  of  the  cabinet  in  the  facfe,  and  they  began 
to  cast  about  for  some  plan  which  would  conciliate  the  colonies 
without  conceding  any  principle  or  sacrificing  any  mark  of  author- 
ity. Lord  Hillsborough,  Secretary  of  State  for  the  Colonies  at 
that  time,  issued  a circular  letter  suggesting  the  possible  repeal 
of  the  duties  on  paper  and  glass, 1 2 3 4 but  the  colonists  held  out  for 
the  removal  of  the  duties  on  tea,  sugar,  wine,  and  molasses  also. 
William  Knox  wrote  to  G-eorge  Grenville  four  months  before  any 
change  was  actuall;/  made:  "The  duties  upon  paper  and  glass,  but  not 
teas,  are  to  be  repealed  from  principles  of  justice,  that  as  the 

colonies  are  obliged  to  take  our  manyf actures , and  cannot  have 

2 g 

others,1-  we  ought  not  to  tax  them  upon  their  going  to  them. 

However,  nothing  was  done  until  March  5,  1770,  when  the 
London  merchants  trading  to  America  attended  the  House  of  Commons 
in  a body  and  presented  a.  petition  "setting  forth  the  great  losses 
they  had  sustained,  and  the  fatal  effects  of  the  late  laws,  which, 
for  the  purpose  of  raising  a revenue  in  the  colonies,  had  imposed 
duties  upon  goods  exported  from  Great  Eritain  thither. This  one 
petition  served  the  same  purpose  that  a multitude  of  petitions  had 
served  upon  the  previous  occasion,  in  that  it  did  arouse  Parliament 

1 Gr o n v i 1 1 e Papers,  vol.4,  p.3oS. 

2 Because  of  the  Navigation  Acts. 

3 Ibid.,  p.480. 

4 Annual  Register.  1770,  p.73. 


17 


to  action.  In  the  debates  which  followed,  there  were  frequent 
references  made  to  the  alarming  state  of  commerce  and  industry  in 
Britain,  but  again  there  was  a hesitancy  about  taking  any  action 
that  would  resemble  a surrender  of  authority  on  the  part  of  the 
mother  country.  Lord  North,  who  had  just  assumed  the  leadership 
of  the  Ministry,  said  in  reply  to  those  who  favored  retaining  all 
of  the  duties  merely  as  a sign  of  the  dominion  and  control  of  the 
mother  country  over  her  colonies:  “I  know  Sir,  at  the  present  per- 
iod, how  extremely  unacceptable  to  many  gentlemen  any  intended 
favour  to  America  will  be;  but  such  gentlemen,  in  the  vehemence  of 
their  resentment  against  their  fellow  subjects  beyond  the  Atlantic, 
must  not  forget  the  prosperity  of  this  country." 

Governor  Povruall  also  sounded  warning  in  his  speech 
against  repealing  only  a portion  of  the  duties,  but  his  warning  was 
ignored  and  the  duty  on  tea  left  in  force,  in  order  to  make  sure 
that  the  colonies  did  not  get  the  notion  that  Great  Britain  was  re- 
nouncing her  claim  to  the  right  to  tax  them  as  she  saw  fit.  How- 
ever, these  concessions  on  the  part  of  Parliament  did  bring  a re- 
laxation of  the  non- importation  restrictions  on  all  articles  except 
tea,  and  trade  returned  to  its  former  channels  in  greater  volume 
than  ever . 

The  victory  on  this  occasion  was  not  as  complete  and  un- 
qualified as  upon  the  former  occasion.  However,  Parliament  was 
obliged  to  confess  the  utter  failure  of  the  Towashend  Acts,  for 
there  was  no  effort  made  to  conceal  the  fact  that  the  tax  on  tea 
was  retained  out  of  obstinacy  rather  than  as  a source  of  revenue. 


1 Parliamentary  History  of  England,  vol.16,  p.359. 


13 

"I  am  clear  there  must  always  be  one  tax  to  keep  up  the  right,  and. 
as  such  I approve  of  the  Tea  Duty,  " w rote  George  III  to  Lord  North 


at  this  time.1  So  the  tax  on  tea  was  retained  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  it  was  frequently  pointed  out  in  the  debates  in  Parlia- 
ment and  elsewhere  that  the  cost  of  collecting  the  duty  would 
amount  to  more  than  the  money  taken  in.  Certainly  no  fair-minded 
person  would  claim  complete  success  for  this  instance  of  the  use  of 
economic  pressure,  but  it  would  be  just  as  unfair  to  brand  this 
case  as  a complete  failure.  It  did  fail  in  that  it  did.  not  force 
England  to  concede  all,  but  it  succeeded  in  a larger  sense  in  that 
it  forced  her  to  acknowledge  the  economic  futility  of  the  offending 
acts  and  brought  about  the  repea.1  of  them  as  far  as  the  revenue 
aspect  was  concerned.  As  in  the  previous  case,  the  fact  that  the 
commercial  and  industrial  groups  were  inadequately  represented  in 
the  Government  delayed  action,  and  in  this  case  prevented  the  re- 
peal being  as  complete  as  it  otherwise  would  undoubtedly  have  been. 

1 Correspondence  of  George  III  with  Lord  North,  vol.1,  p.202. 


CHAPTER  IV.  THE  THIRD  NON  - I r SPORT AT I ON  AGREEMENT. 


Following  the  repeal  of  the  duties  on  paints,  paper,  and 
glass,  there  was  a lull  in  the  quarrel  between  England  and  her  Am- 
erican colonies.  This  was  the  result  of  the  dire  financial  cir- 
cumstances of  the  East  Indie.  Company  because  of  the  oppressive 
duties  on  teas  shipped  into  England.  An  appeal  to  the  government 
for  the  remission  of  these  duties  was  made  by  them,  and  Lord  North's 
Ministry  willingly  gave  the  relief  they  requested.  This  enabled 
them  to  begin  shipping  tea  to  the  colonies  in  1773.  In  most  cases, 
the  Americans  merely  refused  to  purchase  the  tea  and  either  sent 
the  cargoes  back  or  left  the  tea  on  the  wharfs  to  rot.  But  in 
Boston  the  Royal  Governor  refused  to  permit  the  captain  of  a ship 
loaded  with  tea  to  return  to  England  with  his  cargo,  and  the  colon- 
ists thought  he  contemplated  forcing  the  tea  upon  them  whether  they 
wished  it  or  not.  That  was  not  to  be  thought  of,  a/nd  the  result 
was  the  famous  Boston  Tea  Part}',  when  a band  of  about  fifty  men 
dressed  as  Mohawk  Indians  boarded  the  ship  and  threw  all  of  the  tea 
into  the  harbor . 

V/hen  the  news  of  this  escapade  reached  England,  indig- 
nation ran  high  among  those  in  authority,  and  even  those  who  were 
popularly  known  as  friends  of  America  agreed  that  Boston  should  be 
punished.  Since  the  measures  of  economic  pressure  which  the  col- 
onists had  exerted  upon  them  had  been  successful  to  such  a large 
degree,  it  was  decided  to  give  Boston  a "taste  of  the  same  medi- 
cine." So  the  Boston  Port  Bill  was  pa,ssed  providing  "for  the  im- 
mediate removal  of  the  officers  concerned  in  the  collection  and 
management  of  his  Majesty's  duties  of  customs  from  the  town  of  Bos- 


20 


ton,  in  the  province  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  in  North  America;  and  to 
discontinue  the  landing  and  discharging,  lading  and  shipping,  of 
goods,  wares,  and  merchandizes , at  the  said  tov.ni  of  Boston,  or  with- 
in the  harbour  thereof."^ 

The  English  authorities  thought  that  "the  shutting  up  of 
the  port  of  Boston  would  have  been  naturally  a gratification  to  the 
neighboring  towns,  from  the  great  benefits  which  would  accrue  to 
them,  by  the  splitting  and  removing  of  its  commerce;  and  that  this 
would  prove  a fruitful  source  of  jealousy  and  disunion  within  the 

province The  event  was  however  very  different.  The 

neighboring  towns  disdained  every  idea  of  profiting  in  any  degree 
by  the  misfortune  of  their  friends  in  Boston.  The  people  of  the 
province,  instead  of  being  shaken  by  the  coercive  means  which  were 
used  for  their  subjugation,  joined  the  more  firmly  together  to 
brave  the  storm In  the  same  Manner,  the  other  colonies,  in- 

stead of  abandoning,  clung  the  closer  to  their  devoted  sister  as 
the  danger  increased;  and  their  affection  and  sympathy  seemed  to 
rise  in  proportion  to  her  misfortune  and  sufferings."1 2 

The  following  is  an  extract  from  the  copy  of  the  resol- 
utions sent  to  the  Governor  by  Boston's  neighboring  town,  Salem: 

"By  shutting  up  the  port  of  Boston,  some  imagine  that  the  course  of 
trade  might  be  turned  thither,  and  to  our  benefit;  but  nature,  in 
the  formation  of  our  harbour,  forbids  our  becoming  rivals  in  com- 
merce with,  that  convenient  mart.  And  were  it  otherwise,  we  must 


1 Annu a 1 Register.  1774,  p.103- 

2 Ibid.,  1775,  p.2 


21 

be  dead  to  every  idea  of  justice,  lost  to  all  feelings  of  humanity, 
could  we  indulge  one  thought  to  sieze  on  wealth,  and  raise  our 
fortunes  on  the  ruins  of  our  suffering  neighbor."1 2 3 4  The  Annual 
Register  says  of  another  town  near  Boston:  "Their  neighbors,  the 
merchants  and  inhabitants  of  the  town  and  port  of  Marblehead,  who 
were  among  those  that  were  to  profit  the  most  by  their  ruin,  in- 
stead of  endeavoring  to  reap  the  fruit  of  their  calamity,  sent  them 
a generous  offer  of  the  use  of  their  stores  and  wharfs,  of  attend- 
ing to  the  lading  and  unlading  of  their  goods,  and  of  transacting 
all  the  business  they  should  do  at  their  port,  without  putting  them 
to  the  smallest  expence. 

The  other  colonies  also  roused  to  action  at  receiving  the 
news  of  the  Boston  Port  Act.  "Even  those  who  were  moderate,  or 

seeaed  wavering,  now  became  sanguine Nothing  was  to  be 

heard  of  but  meetings  and  resolutions.  Liberal  contributions  for 
the  relief  of  their  distressed  brethren  in  Boston,  were  everywhere 
recommended,  and  soon  reduced  into  practise.'1^  Thus  England's 
attempt  at  economic  coercion  of  one  port  of  a large  country  failed 
in  that  it  served  as  a point  of  union  rather  than  as  a point  of 
division.  The  colonies  would  have  had  no  better  luck  if  they  had 
been  content  to  cut  off  trade  with  only  one  port  of  England. 

This  time  the  colonies  were  thoroughly  aroused,  and  when 
the  First  Continental  Congress  met  in  Philadelphia,  September  5, 
1774,  representatives  from  all  but  one  of  the  colonies  were  there. H 

1 Ibid.,  p.9* 

2 Ibid. , p. 15 . 

3 Ibid . , p . 10 . 

4 Georgia. 


22 


The  most  important  action  of  this  Congress  was  to  form  an  agreement 
to  import  no  English  products  after  December  1,  1774,  and  to  export 
to  no  British  port,  home  or  colonial,  after  September  10,  1775. 
Again  panic  took  possession  of  the  merchants  and  manufacturers  of 
England  and  Scotland.  Burke  drew  a most  depressing  picture  of  "an 
impoverished  revenue;  famished  millions;  the  stagnation  of  nanufac- 
tures;  the  total  overthrow  of  commerce;  the  increase  of  the  poor's 
rate;  the  accumulation  of  taxes;  innumerable  bankruptcies;  and 
other  shocks  which  may  make  the  fabric  of  public  credit  totter  to 
its  basis."1 2 3 4 

In  Parliament  there  were  frequent  appeals  "to  save  our 
commerce  from  that  destruction  which  seems  almost  inevitable,""  but 
no  immediate  action  was  taken,  and,  as  Mr.  G-lover  representing  the 
West  India  merchants  at  the  Bar  of  the  House  of  Commons  said: 
"High-sounding  words  imply  no  food  to  the  hungry,  no  raiment  to  the 
naked;  and  these  throughout  our  empire  may  amount  to  millions  in 
number."^  Edmund  Burke  wrote  in  a letter  to  Richard  Champion: 

"You  tell  me  that  Lord  Clare’s  slummerv  still  prevails  in  Bristol. 
Any  diet,  to  be  sure,  in  hard  times,  is  something.  This,  however, 
is  a maip;re  which  will  scarcely  keep  flesh  on  the  bones  of  the 
manufacturers,  who  are  starving  by  the  measures  of  those  whom  he 
supports."^  Lord  Dudley,  another  member  who  advocated  the  use  of 
harsh  measures  in  dealing  with  the  recalcitrant  colonies,  is  quoted 
as  saying  in  the  course  of  the  debate  on  the  bill  to  restrain  the 

1 Parliamentary  History  of  England , vol.18,  p . 1 90 . 

2 Annu al  Re m i s t e r . 1775,  p.103. 

3 Parliamentary  History  of  England , vol.18,  p.47C. 

4 Correspondence  of  Edmund  Burke , vol . 2 , p . 3 • 


23 


commerce  of  all  New  England:  "Two  of  the  noble  lords  who  spoke  on 
the  other  side,  seem  to  feel  greatly  for  the  distresses  of  the 
Americans;  but  said  not  a syllable  of  the  present  miseries  of  our 
own  manufacturers,  who  were  daily  dismissed  for  want,  oi  employment, 
and  whose  suffering  would,  if  not  prevented  by  this  Bill,  or  some 
other  of  the  same  nature,  become  intolerable.  For  his  part,  he 
lived  in  the  neighborhood  of  one  of  the  greatest  manufacturing 
towns  in  the  kingdom  (Birmingham)  a.nd  there  the  state  of  trade  and 
the  want  of  work  was  such,  that  should  it  continue  much  longer,  the 
most  dreadful  consequences  were  justly  to  be  dreaded."1 2  Thus 
representatives  of  both  shades  of  political  opinion  in  England  at 
that  time  have  testified  to  the  depressed  state  of  affairs  existing 
because  of  the  effectualness  of  the  non- importation  policy  pursued 
by  the  colonies. 

Under  such  conditions  as  those  depicted,  Parliament  was 
naturally  besieged  with  petitions,  not  only  from  all  parts  of  the 
British  Isles,  but  even  from  all  parts  of  the  Empire.  "Several 
meetings  of  the  great  bodies  of  North  American  merchants  in  London 
and  Bristol  were  held,  where  those  measures  by  which  they  were  so 
deeply  affected,  were  fully  discussed,  their  consequences  explained, 
and  petitions  to  parliament  prepared  and  agreed  upon  in  both  places. 
The  times  were  however  altered,  and  such  an  opposition  now,  was  not 
productive  of  the  efficacy  or  danger,  which  till  very  lately  would 
have  rendered  it  terrible."  "The  principal  trading  and  manufac- 
turing towns  in  the  kingdom,  having  waited  to  regulate  their  con- 


1 Parliamentary  History  of  England , vol . 1 8 , p . 436  . 

2 Annual  Register.  1775,  p.47. 


' 


24 

duct  as  to  American  affairs,  by  that  of  the  merchants  of  London 
and  Bristol,  now  accordingly  followed  the  example  of  those  two 
great  commercial  bodies,  and  precared  petitions  upon  that  subject 
to  be  presented  to  parliament."1 2 3  The  petitioners  supposed,  of 
course,  that  their  petitions  would  be  considered  by  the  House  as  g 
whole  in  their  debates,  but  to  their  disgust  a special  committee 
was  created  with  no  other  powers  or  duties  beyond  considering  the 
petitions  submitted  concerning  American  affairs.  This  the  oppos- 

r\ 

ition  termed  "the  committee  of  oblivion"  for  obvious  reasons. 

"On  the  day  appointed  for  taking  the  American  papers  into 
consideration,  a second,  and  very  strong  petition  was  presented 
from  the  merchants  of  London,  in  which  they  argue,  that  the  con- 
nection between  Great  Britain  and  America  originally  was,  and  ought 
to  be,  of  a commercial  kind;  and  that  the  benefits  derived  there- 
from to  the  mother  country  are  of  the  same  nature; that 

presuming  therefore  on  that  opinion,  and  supported  by  that  observ- 
ation, they  represent,  that  the  fundamental  policy  of  those  laws  of 
which  they  complain,  and  the  propriety  of  enforcing,  relaxing,  or 
amending  them,  are  questions  inseparably  united  with  the  commerce 
between  Great  Britain  and  America;  and  consequently,  that  the  con- 
sideration of  the  one  cannot  be  entered  on,  without  a full  discuss- 
ion of  the  other. 

On  the  day  following  the  rejection,  or  rather  disregard- 
ing of  their  second  petition,  one  of  their  body,  deputed  by  the 


1 Ibid.,  p .50 . 

2 Ibid . , p .52  . 

3 Ibid.,  p.52 . 


, 


25 


committee  of  merchants,  in  their  name  represented  at  the  bar  of  the 
House  "that  merchants  revealing  at  that  bar  the  state  of  their 
affairs,  was  i c a sure  which  all  would  wish  to  avoid,  unless  upon 
such  great  occasions  as  the  present,  where  the  public  weal  is  evi- 
dently at  stake,  when  their  duties  as  good  subjects  requires  it  of 
them;  but  when  the  mode  of  examination  is  such  as  totally  precludes 
them  from  answering  the  great  public  object,  which  in  their  opinion 
is  clearly  the  case  at  present,  they  beg  leave  humbly  to  signify 
that  they  wave  appearing  before  the  committee  which  has  been 
appointed.;  and  that  the  merchants  are  not  under  any  apprehensions 
respecting  their  American  debts,  unless  the  means  of  remittance 
should  be  cut  off  by  measures  that  may  be  adopted  in  Great  Britain1.' 1 

Another  notable  set  of  petitions  was  that  offered  by  the 
merchants  dealing  with  the  British  ’Jest  Indies,  who  declared  them- 
selves ready  to  offer  evidence  to  prove  that  "several  of  the  West- 
India  islands  could  not  be  able  to  subsist  after  the  operating  of 
the  proposed  address  in  America."^  There  were  also  petitions  from 
the  inhabitants  of  these  same  islands  averring  the  sane  thing. 
Petitions  continued  to  come  from  all  over  the  Empire  in  such  large 
numbers  that  Burke  announced  that  he  "would  not  trouble  the  noble  ' 
lord  (North)  and  his  train  to  walk  out  every  five  minutes  in  funer- 
al pomp  to  inter  petitions."^ 

Why  did  not  this  great  inundation  of  petitions  have  the 
influence  they  had  had  under  similar  circumstances  in  the  past? 

They  came  too  late.  Burke,  writing  in  January,  1775,  said:  "If 

1 Ibid . , p .56  . 

2 Ibid.,  p.56. 

3 Parliamentary  History  of  ;~Yi  gland.  vol . 1 8 , p . 1 82  . 

-1— — — — ■. — — ..... 


* ~ wt  m 


26 


the  merchants  had  thought  fit  to  interfere  last  winter,  the  dis- 
tress of  this  might  certainly  have  been  prevented;  conciliatory 
measures  would  have  taken  place."1 2 3 4 5  But  in  the  early  part  of  1775, 
the  only  thought  in  the  minds  of  the  party  in  power  in  England  was 
to  compel  the  American  colonies  to  submit,  and  every  other  consid- 
eration was  left  out  and  forgotten  as  far  as  they  were  concerned, 
although  they  admitted  the  economic  folly  of  their  course.  "The 
Solicitor  General 2 defended  the  measure.  He  gave  every  allowance 
for,  and  paid  all  deference  to,  the  interests  of  commerce  and 
manufactures;  but  contended,  that  in  the  present  case  interests 
were  concerned  of  yet  greater  consequences . "J  It  was  determined 
that  the  American  matter  "was  to  be  taken  up  in  a political,  not 
in  a commercial  light.  That  therefore,  as  there  was  little  con- 
nection between  the  views  of  the  house,  and  those  of  the  merchants, 
it  would  be  the  highest  absurdity,  that  a committee,  whose  thoughts 
were  occupied  by  the  first,  should  be  at  all  broke  in  upon  or  dis- 
turbed by  the  ratter. "As  to  the  petitioners,  it  was  not  doubt- 
ed but  they  were  aggrieved;  it  might  be  granted,  that  all  their 
allegations  were  well-founded,  and  that  they  laboured  under  great 

and  singular  distresses But  these  were  circumstances  that 

did  not  interfere  with  the  motion;  they  are  a part  of  the  evils 
incident  to  mankind,  which  may  be  deplored  but  cannot  be  avoided. 
"It  was  allowed,  that  for  the  sake  of  tranquility,  of  our  trade  and 
manufactures,  it  were  much  to  be  wished,  that  lenient  measures 

1 Correspondence  of  Edmund  Burke , vo 1 . 2 , p . 1 . 

2 Alexander  Wedderburn . 

3 Parliamentary  History  of  England , vo 1 . 1 8 , p.4. 

4 Annual  Register.  1775,  p.50. 

5 Ibid.,  p.75. 


. 


27 


could  be  successfully  pursued,"^  but  national  pride  and  personal 
pride  were  in  the  saddle  and  reason  was  cast  to  the  winds. 

In  less  than  three  months  from  the  time  v/hen  the  merchants 
of  London  were  pleading  their  cause  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, the  first  armed  skirmishes  were  taking  place  at  Lexington  and 
Concord  between  the  King's  regiments  and  the  American  farmers. 
Peaceful  methods  of  coercion  had  been  abandoned.  The  differences 
between  the  English  Parliament  and  the  American  people  were  to  be 
settled  by  war.  But  even  then,  and  for  some  months  afterwards , 
many  of  those  of  the  merchant ile  and  industrial  cla.sses  continued 
to  cling  to  the  hope  that  peace  could  be  restored  and  with  it  their 
lost  prosperity.  Of  course  the  outbreak  of  war  brought  no  relax- 
ation of  the  non-intercourse  policy,  but  rather  brought  stricter 
enf orcement . 

As  late  as  October  11,  1775,  six  months  after  the  begin- 
ning of  hostilities,  the  merchants  and  traders  of  London  submitted 
a petition  to  the  King  praying  his  Majesty  "to  cause  hostilities  to 
cease  in  your  Majesty's  colonies  in  America,  and  to  adopt  such  mode 
of  reconciling  this  unhappy  controversy  as  may  best  promote  the 
interest  of  commerce  and  the  welfare  of  all  your  people."2  This 
petition  was  signed  by  1171  persons.  Three  days  later  another 
bearing  941  signatures  was  presented.  Still  later  in  the  same 
month,  a petition  from  the  Lord  Mayor,  the  Aldermen,  and  Commons  of 
the  City  of  London  was  presented.  In  this  latter  petition,  fear 
was  expressed  for  "the  loss  of  the  most  valuable  branch  of  our  com- 
merce, on  which  the  existence  of  an  infinite  number  of  our  indus- 

1 Ibid.,  p.67. 

2 Ibid.,  p.2o7. 

— ii  i — 


20 


trious  nanuf acturers  and  mechanics  entirely  depends."^ 

To  speculate  over  what  might  have  been  is  an  idle  way  to 
spend  one's  tine,  but  it  requires  little  speculation  or  prophetic 
figt  to  see  from  the  facts  presented  regarding  the  three  non- 
importation agreements  of  the  colonies  that  the  third  association 
would  have  been  as  successful  as  the  preceeding  two,  or  more  so, 
but  for  the  entrance  of  certain  facts  that  must  be  considered. 

First,  as  has  been  pointed  out  in  both  of  the  preceeding  cases,  the 
oligarchical  nature  of  the  English  Government  at  that  time  always 
retarded  action  desired  by  the  commercial  and  industrial  classes, 
and  often,  as  in  this  case,  entirely  precluded  such  action.  In 
the  second  place,  this  was  the  third  time  in  a decade  that  the  col- 
onies had  used  this  kind  of  pressure  to  bring  the  mother  country  to 
their  way  of  thinking.  In  the  first  two  cases,  important  concess- 
ions had  b en  made  in  order  to  restore  trade  to  its  former  channels . 
This  too  frequent  use  of  it  by  the  colonies  had  strengthened  the 
party  in  Parliament  which  opposed  conesssions  to  the  colonies  on 
the  grounds  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  satisfying  them  as  they 
would  not  stop  until  they  had  gained  complete  independence  anyhow. 

In  the  third  place,  the  domineering,  antogonistic  policy  followed 
by  the  British  in  the  colonies  precipitated  war  before  the  influ- 
ences named  in  the  first  and  second  points  above  could  be  neutral- 
ized by  the  effectualness  of  the  boycott.  If  the  beginning  of  the 
conflict  could  have  been  postponed  until  that  point  could  have  been 
reached,  the  third  non-importation  movement  would  have  been  as 
successful  as  the  other  two,  for  the  English  Parliament  could  not 
go  on  forever  ignoring  the  commercial  and  economic  needs  of  the 


1 Parliamentary  History  of  England , vol . 1 8 , p . 098 . 


29 


people,  especially  when  they  themselves,  as  Burke  put  it,  be.^an 
to  "feel  the  effects  in  their  purses  or  in  their  bellies. 


1 Correspondence  of  Edmund  Burke , vo 1 . 2 , p . 23 . 


30 


CHAPTER  V.  THE  EMBARGO  AND  NON- INTERCOURSE  ACTS. 

A cumulative  series  of  grievances  and  indignities  brought 
the  attempts  at  economic  coercion  of  England  and  France  made  by  the 
Government  of  the  United  States  under  the  leadership  of  Jefferson 
and  Madison.  A mighty  struggle  for  supremacy  was  in  process 
across  the  Atlantic  with  the  forces  of  France  under  Napoleon  and  of 
Great  Britain  as  chief  participants.  In  the  anxiety  to  achieve 
victory,  both  sides  had  been  negligent  of  the  rights  of  neutrals, 
especially  of  the  rights  of  neutra,!  carriers,  and  since  the  United 
States  was  the  chief  neutral  carrier,  causes  for  complaint  against 
the  belligerents  were  often  found  in  this  country.  The  offenses 
of  the  French  were  usually  more  flagrant,  but  since  they  were  less 
frequent,  the  Non- Importation  Act  of  1806  was  directed  against  the 
English  nation  alone.  This  was  followed  by  the  Embargo  Act  of 
December  2 1 , 1807,  which  was  in  its  turn  replaced  by  another  Non- 
importation Act  fourteen  months  later.  The  latter  two  acts  were 
directed  against  France  as  well  as  against  England. 

The  effects  of  these  acts  on  France  were  negligible, 
since  trade  between  that  country  and  the  United  States  had  not  been 
developed  to  any  extent.  The  average  amount  of  exports  sent  from 
France  to  the  United  States  during  the  years  from  1795  to  1 S0 1 in- 
clusive amounted  to  $1,701,836  while  the  same  figure  for  Great 
Eritain  and  Ireland  reached  $29,057,877,  or  more  than  seventeen 
times  as  much.  The  average  amount  of  imports  into  France  from  the 
United  States  during  this  same  period  was  $2,855,422  while  for 
England  the  figure  reached  $16,044,403,  or  about  5.64  times  as 


31 


that  for  France. 1 2 3 4 Thus  the  United  States  did  not  furnish  much  of 
a market  for  the  products  of  France,  and  few  American  products, 
comparatively  speaking,  found  their  way  to  French  markets,  and  the 
cutting  off  of  commercial  relations  by  the  United  States  had  little 
effect  on  the  commercial  and  industrial  life  of  France. 

In  England,  on  the  other  hand,  the  effects  of  the  embargo 
we re  marked.  "The  American  Government,  in  resorting  to  a general 

Embargo,  took  a measure  which  was  certainly  to  a great  degree 

efficient, " said  James  Stephen  during  the  parliamentary  debates  at 

2 

that  time.  But  American  historians  have  tended  to  emphasize  the 
disasterous  effects  of  this  policy  on  our  own  commerce  and  industry, 
and  to  forget  that  it  had  an  effect  equally  disasterous  on  the 
commerce  of  Great  Britain.  "This  embargo  cuts  us  off  from  trade 
with  at  least  one  foreign  country,  viz.,  America  itself;  and  this 
country  happens  to  be  the  only  one  with  which  we  had  any  trade  re- 
maining, "said  the  author  of  an  unsigned  article  in  the  Edinborough 
Review  of  that  time.  "The  effects  of  this  decisive  step  upon  the 
commerce  and  industry  of  Great  Britain  was  beyond  all  measure  dis- 
asterous . The  British  exports  to  North  America  were  then 
15,000,000  pounds  (sterling)  --  worth  as  Mr.  Brougham  stated  in  the 
debate  which  ensued  on  the  subject,  all  other  foreign  markets  put 
together.  It  was  the  closing  of  this  immense  vent  for  our  manu- 
factured produce  which  v/as  the  cause  of  the  unparalled  depression 
of  our  foreign  trade  during  the  year  1811."^ 

1 Pitkin,  Timothy:  Statistical  View  of  the  U.S..  pps. 201-223. 

2 Parliamentary  Debates.  vol.lP,  p.xcv. 

3 Edinborough  Review.  vol.2l,  p.1134. 

4 Alison:  Lives  of  Lord  Cestlereagh  and  Sir  Charles  Stewart , 

vol . 1 , p .520 . 


32 


However,  one  must  not  judge  from  this  that  there  was  no 
depression  at  all  prior  to  1811.  "There  was  great  distress  in 
1807,  and  there  were  riots  at  Manchester  and  other  places,  in  con- 
sequence of  this  distress,"  declared  Stephen  at  another  time  in  the 
House, * and  Mr.  S.  Whitbread,  apeaking  in  the  House  of  Commons, 

March  3,  1809,  said:  "We  predicted  that  our  manufacturers  would  de- 
cline and  our  exports  and  imports  be  diminished^  --  and  the  result 
has  verified  the  prediction  as  is  but  too  obvious  from  the  papers 
on  the  table.  We  predicted  that  our  manufacturers  would  be  destit- 
ute of  employment  and  reduced  to  extreme  distress  --  and  unhappily 
the  prediction  is  true,  as  appears  from  the  number  of  your  starving 

manufacturers If  you  wish  to  ascertain  the  extent  of 

the  injury  inflicted  on  this  country  by  these  Orders-^,  I ca.ll  upon 
you  to  reflect  upon  the  condition  of  the  extensive  town  of  Manches- 
ter, where  the  poor  rates  have  risen  within  the  last  year  from 
24,000  pounds  (sterling)  to  49,000  pounds,  in  consequence  of  the 
number  of  manufacturers  thrown  out  of  bread:  where  of  the  numerous 
cotton  mills  which  were  formerly  employed,  32  are  now  idle  and  six 
only  at  work.^  Cast  your  eyes  to  Ireland  and  behold  the  state  of 
its  linen  manufacture  for  the  want  of  flax-seed.  Whence  can  it  be 
supplied?  Not  from  America  or  from  the  Baltic.  There  is  not,  I 
understand,  seed  for  a twentieth  part  of  the  land  usually  sown  with 
flax  in  Ireland  this  year,  and  the  consequence  will  and  must  necess- 
arily be,  that  in  the  course  of  the  next  year  a vast  multitude  of 

1 Parliamentary  Debates . vol.21,  p . 1 134. 

2 Because  of  severance  of  trade  relations  with  the  United  States. 

3 In  England  the  continuance  of  the  Orders  in  Council  were  pop- 
ularly blamed  for  the  continuance  of  the  Non- Importation  Act. 

4 Baring's  figures  on  the  Manchester  cotton  mills  were:  9 in  full 
employment,  31  on  half-time,  and  44  with  no  work  at  all. 


33 


persons  will  and  must  necessarily  be  thrown  out  of  employment  in 
that  country . " ^ 

Prices  were  also  on  the  upward  grade,  as  is  usually  the 
case  in  time  of  war,  and  this  added  to  the  misery  from  unemploy- 
ment. "Sugar  and  coffee  rose  100  per  cent,  in  the  continental 
markets,  but  bread  and  beef  rose  nearly  as  much  in  the  British. 
Wheat  was  105  s.  a-quarter,  meat  Is.  a-pound  in  England.  Worse 
than  this,  the  great  diminution  of  the  foreign  trade  deprived  a 
great  part  of  the  working  classes  of  the  means  of  purchasing  pro- 
visions at  these  extravagant  rates.  The  exports  of  the  empire, 
which  in  1309,  had  risen  to  45,000,000  pounds  (sterling),  sank  in 
1611  to  29,000  000  pounds,  lower  than  they  had  been  since  the  re- 
newal of  the  war.  The  consequence  was,  that  distress  in  all  the 
manuf acturing  districts  was  universal  and  intense  beyond  precedent; 
and  the  unhappy  operatives,  ascribing  their  misery  to  the  intro- 
duction of  machinery,  formed  combinations  in  many  places  for  its 
destruction . 

Alexander  Baring,  speaking  in  the  House  of  Commons,  said 
that  the  cause  of  all  the  suffering  was  to  be  found  in  "the  defic- 
iency in  our  imports  from  America;  for  the  raw  material  had  become 
so  scarce,  and  in  consequence  so  high,  that  in  many  places  it  was 
not  to  be  procured . Baring  was  referring  especially  to  the  cot- 
ton manufacturing  industry,  but  this  condition  was  not  confined  to 
that  industry,  but  was  rather  universal  as  far  as  the  British  Isles 

1 Parliamentary  Debates . vol .12,  p . 1 1 63 . 

2 Alison:  Lives  of  Lord  Castlereagh  and  Sir  Charles  Btewart , 

vol . 1 , p.5t9 . 

3 Parliamentary  Debates , vol . 1 2 , p . 1 1 94  - 


34 


were  concerned,  except  for  the  few  industries  that  are  always  stim- 
ulated by  war  conditions  and  even  some  of  those  were  languishing 
because  of  a scarcity  of  raw  materials.  "It  is  not  the  effect  of 
the  Orders  in  Council  or  the  Continental  System  of  the  enemy  which 
has  caused  the  distress  so  severely  felt  in  this  country,  but  the 
interruption  of  our  commercial  intercourse  with  America,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  Non- Intercourse  Act  passed  in  that  country,"  wrote 
Lord  Castlereagh  in  a letter.^  This  feeling  was  quite  general 
among  the  more  intelligent  of  the  commercial  and  manufacturing 
classes  . 

The  announcement  of  the  American  G-overnment  that  the  Em- 
bargo and  Non- Intercourse  Acts  would  be  relaxed  as  far  as  either 
England  or  France  were  concerned  when  those  countries  had  removed 
the  restrictions  on  American  commerce  brought  a large  number  of 
petitions  to  Parliament  praying  for  the  repeal  of  the  Orders  in 
Council  or  for  other  measures  of  relief . From  Bolton  came  a 
petition  saying  "that  the  petitioners  suffer  great  privations  on 
account  of  the  depressed  state  of  the  manufacturers,  whereby  the 
price  of  labour  is  r duced  in  the  most  unprecedented  degree,  and 
thousands  of  the  petitioners  threatened  with  the  want  of  employ- 
ment;   and  that  the  depressed  reduction  of  trade  reduces 

thousands  of  the  petitioners  to  the  most  extreme  distress;  and  that 
many  useful  enterprising  and  ingenious  manufacturers  have  been  re- 
duced from  affluence  to  complete  poverty,  the  consequence  of  which 
is,  that  a number  of  the  petitioners  have  been  reduced  to  the  ab- 
solute want  of  the  necessaries  of  life  for  themselves  and  helpless 

1 Alison:  Lives  of  Lord  Castlereagh  and  Sir  Charles  Stev/art , 

vol . 1 , p.525 • 


35 


offspring."1 2 "Several  subscriptions  have  been  made  by  the 

friends  of  humanity,  yet  these  are  very  inadequate,  nor  can  effect- 
ual relief  be  given,  as  the  distressed  objects  increase,  unless  the 
wisdom  of  the  House  devise  some  method  to  remove  or  alleviate  the 
general  calamity,  which  now  threatens  one  common  ruin  to  the  great- 
er part  of  the  inhabitants  of  that  once  happy  country."^ 

A similar  petition  came  from  Oldham.  A petition  from 
Paisley  and  nearby  towns  set  forth  "that  the  petitioners,  in  con- 
sequence of  the  depressed  condition  of  trade,  have  of  late  been 
subjected  to  difficulties  unknown  e.t  any  former  period;  and  at  pre- 
sent such  is  the  low  state  of  the  Cotton  Manufactures,  that  large 
numbers  have  been  thrown  out  of  employment,  and  the  wages  of  those 
that  are  employed  have  in  general,  within  the  last  ten  months,  been 
reduced  two  thirds,  so  that  it  requires  great  exertions  for  an  in- 
dividual to  procure  the  necessaries  of  life;  and  such  is  the  gener- 
al distress,  that  of  a population  of  about  30,000,  upwards  of  1,200 
families,  who  formerly  supported  themselves  by  their  own  industry, 
are  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  receiving  precarious  and  temporary 
assistance  from  their  humane  and  more  wealthy  neighbors;  and  that 
the  present  calamity,  though  first  felt  by  the  manufacturers  and 
operatives,  has  not  been  confined  to  them  alone,  but  has  extended 
to  almost  every  rank  and  profession,  involving  in  ruin  many  re- 
spectable individuals  of  large  capital;  bankruptcy  has  succeeded 
bankruptcy  to  such  an  alarming  extent  as  nearly  to  destroy  all 
confidence  betwixt  the  manufacturer  and  merchant,  and  that  the 


1 Parliamentary  Debates,  vol.10,  p.692. 

2 Ibid.,  vol.20,  p.342. 


36 

present  depressed  state  of  our  m;  nufacturs  is  chiefly  owing  to  the 
exclusion  of  our  commerce  from  the  continent  of  Europe,  and  the 

stoppage  of  our  trade  with  America;  and  praying  the  House 

to  take  into  consideration  the  present  alarming  state  of  the  coun- 
try, and  to  adopt  such  measures  as  may  appear  to  them  best  calcul- 
ated to  afford  relief."^ 

Petitions  in  the  same  tenor  came  from  Lanark,  Ayr,  and 
Renfrew.  From  Ilanchester  came  a petition  "subscribed  by  more  than 
forty  thousand  signatures,  the  majority/-  of  whom  were  reduced  to  a 
state  of  extreme  distress,"  and  saying  "that  a revocation  of  the 
Orders  in  Council  would  pave  the  way  to  a removal  of  the  Non- 
intercourse and  Non-importation  Acts  lately  passed  by  the  Congress 
and  Senate  of  the  United  Sta-tes  of  America,  which  have  already  add- 
ed, and  will  no  doubt  still  further  tend  to  add,  to  the  distresses 
of  the  Petitioners,  and  would,  in  the  opinion  of  the  Petitioners, 
by  opening  a more  extended  mart  for  commerce,  in  a partial  degree 

O 

be  the  means  of  restoring  them  to  a more  comfortable  state. "“ 

The  knitters  of  Leicester  sent  in  a petition  signed  by 

3 

11,000  persons,  and  the  merchants  and  manufacturers  of  Birmingham 
and  Sheffield  submitted  a petition  bearing  14,000  signatures.^ 

The  potters  of  Straff ordshire  and  Yorkshire  "humbly  conceive  that 
the  Orders  in  Council  issued  in  1807,  and  continued  in  certain  of 
their  provisions  in  an  Order  of  1309,  were  intended  to  force  com- 
mercial communications  with  the  continent  of  Europe  from  the  press- 

1 Parliamentary  Debates . vol . 19 . p.1017. 

2 Ibid.,  vol. 20,  p.342. 

3 Ibid. , vol .22 , p . 1 

4 Ibid.,  vol. 22,  p.424. 


, 


37 

ure  of  its  necessities,  but  instead  of  producing  that  effect,  they 
are  manifestly  the  cause  of  still  further  curtailing  our  trade,  by 
depriving  us  of  the  market  of  the  United  States  of  America,  the 
only  one  of  importance  which  was  left  to  us."1 2 3  Other  towns  sub- 
mitting petitions  were  Shrewsbury,  Kendal,-  Dumferline,  South 
Shields,^  Glasgow,4 5 6 7  Sunderland,^  Blackburn,0  and  Worcester.?  Also 
"6,560  most  respectable  individuals  of  the  town  of  Liverpool,  in 
the  space  of  only  four  days,  had  stepped  forward  to  affix  their 
signatures,  for  the  purpose  of  praying  the  repeal  of  the  Orders  in 
Council  as  the  cause  of  the  commercial  distress  which  affected  not 

Q 

that  place  only,  but  the  country  in  general." 

There  were  also,  as  was  to  be  expected,  a few  counter- 
petitions, most  of  which  were  sponsered  by  the  shipowners  of  Brit- 
ain, who,  of  course,  did  not  wish  to  see  a strong  American  merchant 
marine  develop.  A number  of  the  signers  of  these  latter  petitions 
were  patriotic  individuals,  who  frankly  put  their  desire  to  win  the 
war  against  Napoleon  ahead  of  any  personal  desires  for  commercial 
prosperity.  These  admitted  with  all  candor  that  conditions  in  the 
country  were  anything  but  satisfactory,  but  thought  that  the  task 
of  winning  the  war  should  take  precedence  over  everything  else. 

However,  the  leaders  of  the  party  in  Parliament  which  was 

1 Ibid.,  vol.22,  p.329. 

2 Ibid.,  vol.22,  p.329- 

3 Ibid.,  vol.23,  p.232. 

4 Ibid.,  vol.23,  p.247. 

5 Ibid.,  vol.22,  p.1057. 

6 Ibid.,  vol.22,  p.2l2. 

7 Ibid.,  vol.23,  p.351. 

3 Ibid.,  vol.22,  p.1053. 


33 


supporting  the  Orders  in  Council  were  not  so  frank,  but  insisted 
that  all  this  hue  and  cry  about  financial  and  industrial  depression 
was  without  reason  or  foundation;  that  the  country  was  more  pros- 
perous, in  fact,  than  it  usually  had  been  in  the  past.  They  even 
went  so  far  as  to  quote  figures  of  exports  and  imports  of  present 
and  past  years  to  show  what  prosperity  the  country  was  enjoying. 
Whitbread,  a leader  of  the  opposition  party  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
said  this  "put  him  in  mind  of  the  correspondence  which  had  taken 
place  between  a noble  lord  ( Castlereagh)  and  General  Moore,  as  to 
the  force  commanded  by  the  latter.  The  General  observed,  'I  had 
only  such  a number  of  men:'  ' 0, ' said  the  noble  lord,  'you  had  a 
great  nany  more;  --  here  I can  prove  it  on  paper.’  So,  to  the 
starving  manufacturer,  who  exclaimed,  'I  am  unable  to  exist,'  the 
House  of  Commons  night  exultingly  say,--  'Look  to  these  accounts  -- 
behold  the  flourishing  state  of  our  exports  and  imports.'"1 

Upon  this  same  occasion,  Alexander  Baring  said  that  "he 
really  could  not  help  feeling  a good  deal  of  surprise,  when  he 
heard  the  hon.  and  learned  gentleman  (Stephen)  confidently  talk  of 
the  prosperous  state  of  the  trade  of  this  country,  and  assert  that 
it  was  now  more  flourishing  than  previous  to  the  Orders  in  Council. 
Would  any  man  in  the  House  who  was  in  any  way  engaged  in  trade  say 
this?  Was  there  any  nan  so  unconnected  with  trade  as  not  to  know 
how  utterly  unfounded  this  assertion  was?  It  was  really  surpris- 
ing to  him  that  there  should  be  any  man  so  blind  to  everything 
passing  around  him,  so  deaf  to  the  language  of  ev  ry  part  of  the 
country,  or  so  infatuated  by  the  spirit  of  the  system,  as  to 


1 


Ibid.,  vol.21,  p.lloO 


39 


venture  gravely  to  assert  such  a proposition.  Could  any  man  be 
ignorant  of  the  universal  distress  of  the  manufacturing  towns;  of 
the  petitions  from  Straf fordshire ; of  the  reduced  state  of  that 

once  most  flourishing  trading  town,  Liv  rpool?  He  thought 

these  distresses  were  so  evident,  as  not  to  require  any  argument  ; 
in  that  House  to  prove  their  existence."' 

Although  the  majority  leaders  themselves  refused  to  admit 
the  existence  of  these  distressing  conditions,  the  committee 
appointed  to  consider  the  petitions  did  "fully  acknowledge,  and 
most  deeply  lament  the  great  distress  of  numbers  of  persons  engaged 
in  the  cotton  manufacture,  in  various  trades  connected  with  it,"^ 
etc.,  but  could  promise  no  relief  to  the  petitioners. 

Finally,  however,  affairs  within  the  kingdom  came  to  such 
a pass  that  some  measure  of  relief  seemed  imperative;  so  the  Com- 
mercial Credit  Bill  was  introduced.  This  aimed  to  make  it  possible 
for  merchants  and  manufacturers  to  have  their  personal  credit  ex- 
panded by  means  of  government  backing,  in  order  to  enable  them  to 
weather  the  storm.  In  the  debates  on  the  subject,  Lord  Grenville 
announced  that  he  had  little  use  for  the  bill  as  it  did  not  in  any 
sense  remove  the  cause  of  the  trouble.  Curwen,  In  the  House  of 
Commons,  was  even  more  outspoken,  saying  he  "trusted  the  Committee 
would  not  limit  its  attention  to  this  single  measure  of  relief;  but, 
at  a proper  and  early  opportunity,  apply  itself  to  an  investigation 
of  the  original  and  radical  cause  . From  the  inquiries  he  had 

1 Ibid.,  vol.2l , p.?36. 

2 Ibid.,  vol.20,  p.oC9. 

3 Ibid.,  vol.20,  p.oC9. 

=»■ 


40 


made  in  the  great  manufacturing  districts  of  Lancashire,  he  knew, 
that  the  distresses  and  sufferings  of  that  deserving  body  were  by 
themselves  attributed  to  the  nature  of  our  relations  with  America. 
The  agricultural  interest  was  now  feeling  the  evil;  for,  from  the 
distress  of  the  manufacturer,  no  longer  able  to  purchase  the  same 
food  as  formerly,  the  farmers  could  not  obtain  the  same  market  for 

their  produce He  conjured  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 

therefore,  whatever  may  be  his  own  predilections,  not  to  continue 
bigotted  to  a scheme  of  policy,  which  had  produced  and  must  con- 
tinue to  produce  such  widespread  distress  and  privations."'  Lord 
Castlereagh  declared  that  "no  question  more  vital,  both  to  the 
national  security  and  the  commercial  interests  of  the  country,  ever 
came  before  Parliament.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  a case  of 
grave  distress  to  the  manufacturing  classes  has  been  made  out  in 
the  evidence,  and  there  is  reason  to  fear  that  if  the  North  Amer- 
ican market  is  not  speedily  opened  that  suffering  will  be  augment- 

' 1!  2 
ea . 

The  effect  of  the  embargo  on  the  United  States  is  well- 
known  to  students  of  American  history.  John  Lambert  gives  an 
interesting  description  of  the  port  of  New  York  during  the  time 
when  the  embargo  was  being  enforced:  "The  coffee-house  slip,  the 
wharfs  e„nd  quays  along  South-street,  presented  no  longer  the  bustle 
and  activity  that  had  prevailed  there  five  months  before.  The 
port,  indeed,  was  full  of  shipping;  but  they  were  dismantled  and 
laid  up.  Their  decks  were  cleared,  their  hatches  frstened  down, 
and  scarcely  a sailor  was  to  be  found  on  board.  Not  a box,  bale, 

1 Ibid.,  vol.19,  p.344. 

2 Lives  of  Lord  Castlerean.Ii  and  Sir  Charles  Stevmrt.  vol . 1 , p.325. 


41 


cask,  barrel,  or  package,  was  to  be  seen  upon  the  wharfs.  Many  of 
the  counting-houses  were  shut  up,  or  advertised  to  be  let;  and  the 
few  solitary  merchants,  clerks,  porters,  and  labourers,  that  were 
to  be  seen,  were  walking  about  with  their  hands  in  their  pockets. 
Instead  of  sixty  or  hundred  carts  that  used  to  stand  in  the  street 
for  hire,  scarcely  a dozen  appeared,  and  they  were  unemployed:  a 
few  coasting  sloops,  and  schooners,  which  were  clearing  out  for 
some  of  the  ports  in  the  United  States,  were  all  that  remained  of 
that  immense  business  which  was  carried  on  a few  months  before. 

The  coffee-house  was  almost  empty:  or,  if  there  happened  to  be  a 
few  people  in  it,  it  was  merely  to  pass  away  the  time  which  hung 
heavy  on  their  hands,  or  to  enquire  anxiously  after  news  from  Eu- 
rope, and  from  Washington;  or  perhaps  to  purchase  a few'  bills,  that 
were  selling  at  ten  or  twelve  per  cent,  above  par.  In  fact, 

everything  presented  a melancholy  appearance The  scene  was 

so  gloomy  and  forlorn,  that  had  it  been  the  month  of  September  in- 
stead of  April,  I should  verily  have  thought  that  a malignant  fever 
was  raging  in  the  place;  so  desolate  were  the  effects  of  the  em- 
bargo, which  in  the  short  spare  of  five  months  had  deprived  the 
first  commercial  city  in  the  States  of  all  its  life,  bustle,  and 
activity;  caused  above  one  hundred  and  twenty  bankruptcies;  and 
completely  annihilated  its  foreign  commerce."' 

With  conditions  such  a.s  these  existing  in  every  American 
port,  is  it  surprising  that  there  arose  a strong  opposition  to  the 
embargo  from  the  very  beginning,  and  that  there  was  a vast  amount 
of  evasion?  The  embargo  was  an  insane  attempt  to  apply  the  eco n- 

1 Lambert : Travels  through  Canada  and  the  United  Stakes  of _ forth 

America,  p.63. 


* 


42 


omic  method  of  coercion,  in  that  it  could  not  fail  to  injure  the 
state  using  it  more  then  the  states  against  whom  it  was  directed. 
'Tere  non-intercourse  with  the  offending  powers  would  have  been 
more  difficult  of  strict  enforcement,  but  it  would  have  left  im- 
portant markets  open  to  American  shipping  and  would  have  imposed 
enough  restraints  to  cripple  the  offenders. 

The  success  of  the  Non-Intercourse  Act,  v/hich  followed 
the  repeal  of  the  Embargo  Act,  has  been  clouded  by  the  breaking 
out  of  the  War  of  1812,  but  it  should  be  remembered  that  Parliament 
did  actually  repeal  the  offensive  Orders  in  Council  in  so  far  as 
they  applied  to  America  before  the  news  that  the  United  States  had 
declared  war  had  reached  England.  If  the  war  spirit  in  America 
could  have  been  cooled  down  for  another  two  or  three  months,  there 
is  plenty  of  reason  for  believing  that  with  the  repeal  of  the 
Orders  in  Council,  war  with  England  could  have  been  avoided. 


' 

■ 


43 


CHAPTER  VI.  THE  CHINESE  BOYCOTT  OF  AMERICAN  GOODS . 

"China  now  has  the  distinction  of  having  organized  the 
most  extensive  boycott  in  the  annals  of  history,"  wrote  W.  A.  P. 
Martin  in  the  January  (1906)  number  of  Worlds  Work, ^ concerning  the 
boycott  Y/hich  the  Chinese  were  carrying  on  against  American  pro- 
ducts at  that  tine.  This  movement  was  organized  and  carried  on  by 
the  Merchant  Guilds  of  that  country  in  retaliation  for  the  alleged 
unfair  treatment  which  the  students,  merchants,  and  professional 
men  of  China  were  receiving  at  the  hands  of  the  immigration  offic- 
ials of  the  United  States.  The  movement  was  essentially  a popular 
one  although  it  had  "the  countenance  and  sympathy,  open  or  secret, 
of  all  officials,  high  or  low."^  The  attitude  of  the  Government 
is  shown  to  some  degree  in  their  act  annulling  the  contract  of  the 

Canton-Hankow  railroad  which  was  held  by  a.  syndicate  controlled  by 

3 

J.  P.  Morgan  & Company. 

The  American  authorities  demanded  that  the  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment of  China,  issue  an  edict  commanding  the  Chinese  tradesmen  to 
desist  from  their  boycotting  tactics,  and  this  was  done.  Some 
time  afterwards  the  Journal  of  Commerce  was  quoted  as  saying: 
"Cables  received  by  American  houses  doing  business  in  South  China 
(say)  that  the  boycott  on  American  goods  not  only  continues  in 
Canton  and  some  interior  ports,  but  is  assuming  a more  aggressive 
end  dangerous  character . Upon  receiving  such  news,  the  Govern- 

1 Martin,  W.A.P.:  Awakening  of  China.  Worlds  Work,  11:7124. 

2 Ibid . , p .7 1 26  . 

3 Review  of  Reviews,  September,  1905,  32:281. 

4 Literary  Digest,  November  11,  1905,  31:693. 


1 


* 

■ 


44 


raent  of  the  United  States  demanded  that  the  Government  of  China 
take  some  drastic  action  to  bring  about  enforcement,  to  which  the 
Imperial  Government  sagely  replied  that  it  could  not  force  its  sub- 
jects to  trade  with  or  desist  from  trading  with  any  nation. 

The  effectualness  of  the  boycott  is  something  of  a mooted 
question.  "The  movement  in  China  to  boycott  American  goods  was 
so  far  effective  that  it  ca.used  the  United  States  Government  to 
take  action  with  regard  to  the  obnoxious  immigrant  regulations," 
was  the  way  a brief  article  in  The  Economist  (London)  approached 
the  subject.  "Put  as  regards  the  actual  volume  of  tra.de,  the 
movement  would  appear  to  have  been  abortive,  seeing  that  exports 
from  the  United  States  to  China,  in  the  ten  months  ending  October 
last  were  more  than  twice  as  great  as  in  any  corresponding  period  in 
the  history  of  American  commerce,  while  for  the  month  of  October 
the  total  was  larger  than  in  any  preceeding  October  except  that  of 
1904.  More  than  half  of  the  American  exports  to  China  consist  of 
cotton  cloths,  and  the  following  table  shows  the  quantity  of  these 
goods  shipped  and  also  the  value  of  the  United  States  total  ship- 
ments to  that  market  in  the  ten  months  ending  October  in  the  years 
named: 


Year 


Exports  of  Cotton 
Cloth  (yards) 


Total  Exports 
( dollars ) 


1905 

1904 

1903 

1395 


451,501,271 
171 , 1 16,493 
177,037,479 
31  ,781 ,765 


$50 , 104,767 
$20 , 557 , 184 
$13,311 ,480 
$ 2,834,803 


These  figures  point  to  a trade  development  of  a very  pronounced 


character,  and  they  afford  adequate  reason  for  the  desire  of  the 


45 


United  States  Government  to  cultivate  friendly  relations  with 
China."1 2 

This  was  written  in  December  when  the  boycott  had  been  in 
force  for  nearly  five  months.  However,  even  before  it  went  into 
effect,  Dun's  Review  forsaw  the  situation  ahead  and  hs.d  an  explan- 
ation for  the  continued  exports  to  China  throughout  1905,  saying 
that  they  were  "evidently  in  anticipation  of  the  intended  boycott, 
and  that  a provision  has  been  made  in  all  the  boycott  agreements 
exempting  merchandize  already  purchased.  To  the  end  of  the  pre- 
sent calendar  year,  therefore,  our  trade  wrill  not  suffer  very  mat- 
erially however  stringent  or  effective  the  boycott  may  be.  Should 
it  be  permitted  to  remain  in  force  indef initely,  however,  there  can 
be  no  question  that  not  only  our  trade  with  China  but  our  trade  in 
many  other  parts  of  the  Orient,  including  the  Philippines  and  the 
Straits  Settlements,  will  be  seriously  imperilled."" 

"It  required  little  more  than  a threat  on  the  part  of 
China  to  boycott  United  States  products  to  bring  us  to  time,"  com- 
mented the  Milwaukee  Free  Press  when  President  Roosevelt  issued 
his  instructions  to  Secretary  Metcalf  to  exercise  less  rigor  in  ex- 
ecuting the  exclusion  laws.^  Such  would  seem  to  be  the  facts  in 
the  case.  May  10,  1905,  the  meeting  was  held  at  Shanghai  which 
declared  the  boycott  of  American  wrares  to  go  into  effect  August  1, 
and  less  than  seven  weeks  later  the  president  hah  issued  the  order 
mentioned  above.  A sort  of  terror  seemed  to  take  possession  of 
the  trading  and  oanuf acturing  population  of  the  United  States  at 
the  mere  suggestion  of  a boycott  by  China.  The  boycott  was 

1 Economist  (London),  December  16,  1$05,  43:2013 

2 Dun's  Review',  July  29,  1905. 

5 Literary  Digest,  July  8,  1905,  31:38. 


. 


46 

scheduled  to  begin  August  1,  hut  several  weeks  before  that  time,  in 
fact  from  the  very  beginning,  agitation  was  on  in  the  United  States 


to  take  measures  that  would  avert  what  they  believed  would  be  a 
catastrophe.  Assistant  Secretary  of  State  Loomis  informed  the 
American  Minister  to  China  that  the  protests  were  "increasing  and 
becoming  more  emphatic."1  The  officials  of  the  Standard  Oil  Com- 
pany notified  the  State  Department  that  the  American  petroleum  in- 
dustry would  be  greatly  and  gravely  affected  by  the  movement  in 
China.  Those  connected  in  any  way  with  the  raising  of  cotton  or 
the  manufacture  of  cotton  cloth  were  also  alarmed,  as  China  was  one 
of  the  important  markets  for  that  commodity. 

"The  Chinese  question  formed  the  subject  of  the  most  hot- 
ly debated  resolution  adopted  by  the  Trans-Mississippe  Commercial 
Congress  at  Portland,  Ore.  The  resolution  referred  to,  after  re- 
citing the  existence  of  the  boycott,  petitioned  the  President,  if 
deemed  expedient,  to  reiterate  his  instructions  for  the  proper 
treatment  of  the  privileged  classes  in  China,  to  ascertain  the  rea- 
son for  the  present  boycott,  and  to  appoint  a commission  to  invest- 
igate and  report  to  Congress,  with  recommendations  for  a comprehens- 
ive immigration  law  framed  to  remove  all  unreasonable  restrictions'.'^ 
In  the  beginning,  sentiment  in  the  Far  West  had  been  almost  unan- 
imously in  favor  of  rigid  enforcement  of  the  lav/,  but  when  their 
financial  welfare  was  threatened,  a change  took  place  in  their 
attitude  of  which  the  above  instance  is  one  example.  "If  news- 


1 House  Documents,  vol . 1 , 59th  Congress,  p.212. 

2 Ibid . , p .208 . 

3 Brads treet ' s , August  26,  1905,  33:529- 


47 

paper  editorials  are  taken  as  a sign,"  commented  The  Outlook,  "pop- 
ular feeling  seems  strongly  to  be  inclined  towards  sympathy  with 
the  Chinese  demands . " ^ 

The  fact  that  the  first  ten  months  of  I905  had  showed  an 
actual  increase  of  exports  from  this  country  failed  to  reassure 
many,  as  they  realized  with  Dun's  Review  that  the  storm  was  yet  to 
break.  This  view  was  justified  when  in  the  opening  months  of  1906 
the  effects  began  to  be  more  obvious.  "So  far  from  the  boycott  of 

American  goods  being  ended,"  declared  The  Outlook  at  this  time, 

"it  continues  seriously  to  affect  American  trade  in  the  Yangtse  and 
Canton  regions. Also  the  message  of  the  President  to  Congress, 
December  5,  19°5,  called  attention  to  the  seriousness  of  the  quest- 
ion and  demanded  action  that  would  relieve  the  situation."^  The 
statement  of  Special  Agent  Durrill  stationed  at  Hong  Kong  probably 
had  something  to  do  with  making  the  people  of  this  country  see  the 
real  danger  in  the  dispute.  He  said:  "The  boycott  against  the  pro- 
ducts of  the  United  States  must  be  given  serious  consideration. 

It  has  constituted  a grave  menace  to  the  maintenance  of  a market 
which  has  taken  years  of  earnest,  conscientious  work  to  build  up, 
and  according  to  business  men  here  (Hong  Kong) , who  are  thoroughly 
familiar  with  the  situation  in  all  its  ramifications,  its  contin- 
uance will  deal  a blow  to  the  American  exporters  from  which  it  will 
require  time  to  recover.  This  view  of  conditions  now  obtaining 
in  the  Chinese  market  may  be  regarded  as  extreme  by  Americans  in- 
terested in  the  export  trade  with  the  Orient,  but  careful  inquiries 

1 Outlook,  August  26,  1905,  80:992. 

2 Outlook,  January  20,  1906,  82:106. 

3 House  Documents,  vol ■ 1 , No . 1 , 59th  Congress,  p.L. 


43 


indicate  that  it  is  conservative  and  unbiased,  and  that  it  can 
easily  be  verified  by  facts  and  figures."1 2 3 4 5  A later  report  from 
Hong  Kong  said:  "The  decrease  in  American  exports  to  China  in  1906, 
which  for  general  trade  was  one  of  the  worst  years  almost  in  the 
commercial  history  of  that  Empire,  occurred  in  cotton  piece  goods, 
copper,  and  mineral  oil;  the  decrease  in  the  three  articles  amount- 
ing to  $30,586,946 . 

Consul  Mason  Mitchell  reported  for  Chungking:  "The  year 
of  1905  was  chronicled  as  the  most  disastrous  since  the  port  was 
opened  to  trade  in  1893,  and  the  year  1906,  as  far  as  the  returns 
show,  was  fully  as  bad  in  trade  as  1905*"^  Consul -General  James 
W.  Ragsdale  at  Tientsin  reported  a falling  off  of  13  per  cent,  in 
the  importation  of  American  cotton  piece  goods  in  1906  at  that 
port,  and  a 2 6 ner  cent,  decrease  in  oil  importations  from  America.^ 
The  Consul-G-eneral  at  Shanghai  reported  to  the  State  Department 
through  the  American  Minister  to  China  that  "American  trade  was 
suffering  heavily  and  it  was  feared  that  it  would  take  a long  time 
to  regain  the  ground  lost  during  the  boycott. 

Brief  extracts  from  various  issues  of  Dun's  Review  during 
19 06  tell  the  same  story: 

March  31 , "Only  a moderate  export  demand  is  noted,  chief- 
ly in  sheetings  for  China." 

April  7,  "Little  export  interest  is  shown,  small  orders 

1 Monthly  Consular  and  Trade  Reports,  February,  19C6,  p.4- 
(In  House  Documents,  vol.56,  59th  Congress,  1st  session.) 

2 House  Documents,  vol.18,  59th  Congress,  2nd.  session,  p.256. 

3 Ibid.,  p.274. 

4 Ibid. , p .291  • 

5 House  Documents,  vol . 1 , 59th  Congress,  1st  session,  p.216. 


49 


for  China  and  Manila.  barely  preventing  inactivity  in  this  depart- 
ment . " 

May  2 6,  "Many  Southern  mills  are  nearing  the  end  of 

their  Chinese  orders,  which  will  add  to  the  competition  for  bus- 
iness . " 

June  9,  "The  weakest  feature  of  the  cotton  goods  indus- 
try ft  the  present  time  is  the  utter  absence  of  export  demand. 

China  is  out  of  the  market  and  a heavy  accumulation  of  goods  is 
noted  at  Shanghai,  while  the  outlook  for  their  absorption  is  far 
from  promising." 


June  16,  "Absence  of  export  demand  continues  the  least 
encouraging  feature  in  the  cotton  goods  industry." 

June  30,  "Exports  to  South  America  and  other  miscellan- 
eous shipments  only  partially  offset  the  utter  lack  of  contracts 
from  China,  which  is  the  least  satisfactory  feature." 


Under  these  conditions,  the  legislature  of  the  State  of 
Georgia  awakened  to  a burning  zeal  for  the  promotion  of  Christian 
missions  in  China,  and  sent  a petition  to  the  President  and  to 
Congress  urging  them  "to  repeal  or  so  modify  what  is  known  as  'the 
Chinese-exclusion  act'  as  will  not  only  restore  friendly  relations, 
but  extend  our  commerce  with  that  country."^  In  an  article  in 
World  Today,  James  J.  Hill  of  the  Great  Northern  Railroad  is  quoted 
as  saying,  "The  Chinese  boycott  has  been  the  greatest  commercial 
disaster  America  has  ever  suffered:"^  and  the  Vice-President  of  the 
Pacific  Mail  Steamship  Company  regretfully  announced  that  our  trade 
with  China  was  "practically  gone"  as  a result  of  the  boycott.^ 


1 Congressional  Record,  vol.40,  part  1,  p.2t4. 

2 World  Today,  March,  1906,  10:309* 

3 Nation,  February,  1906,  82:152. 


50 


One  thing  that  served  to  cloud  the  issue  and  confuse  many 
was  the  number  of  apparently  conflicting  reports  that  continuously 
came  in.  From  Amoy,  Consul  0.  S.  Anderson  reported  that  "the  im- 
ports of  American  kerosene  show  a great  increase,  in  spite  of  the 
keenest  competition,  boycott,  and  other  troubles."*  Reporting 
from  Hankow,  Consul-G-eneral  William  Martin  said  that  the  imports  of 
American  kerosene  had  increased  5 “I  per  cent,  in  that  port  during 
the  year  1906  as  compared  with  the  previous  year  . ^ Consul-G-eneral 
Rodgers  of  Hong  Kong  went  to  great  pains  to  show  that  the  "so-called 
boycott"  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  falling  off  of  the  trade  in 
cotton  cloth  in  1906,  but  that  it  was  "wholly  due  to  the  fact  that 
the  greater  portion  of  the  trade  was  in  Manchuria,  within  the  war 
zone,  and  that  the  demoralization  and  waste  of  the  war  left  the 
people  unable  to  purchase  their  usual  quantities  of  the  goods. 
Vice-Consul  Lupton  at  Amoy  reported  that  "while  agitation  in  re- 
gard to  the  American  boycott  has  been  extreme,  the  effects  on  tre.de 
have  been  almost  nil."^  A number  of  other  consular  officials  re- 
ported without  making  any  reference  at  all  to  the  boycott,  which 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  it  had  had  no  effect  worth  mentioning 
in  their  region. 

The  explanation  of  these  apparent  contradictions  is  that 
the  boycott  was  not  universal  in  the  Chinese  Empire,  although  it 
did  take  in  the  chief  ports  such  as  Shanghai , Tientsin,  Hong  Kong, 
and  Hankow.  The  movement  even  spread  to  Siam  and  the  Philippine 
Islands  where  the  Chinese  entered  into  agreements  supporting  the 

1 House  Documents,  vol.1t5,  59th  Congress,  p.331. 

2 House  Documents,  vol.18,  59th  Congress,  2nd  session,  p.280. 

3 Ibid.,  p.2o6. 

4 House  Documents,  vol.56,  59th  Congress,  1st  session,  p.24. 


51 

boycott.  In  China  itself,  the  movement  was  confined,  for  the 
most  part,  to  the  port  towns  of  the  South.  A number  of  other 
ports  were  left  unaffected  and  American  products  poured  into  these 
ports  in  greater  volume  than  ever. 

The  boycott  was  a success  in  that  it  secured  for  the 
Chinese  what  they  desired  in  the  way  of  concessions  from  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  United  States,  but  it  was  fear  for  loss  of  tra.de 
more  than  actual  loss  of  trade  that  brought  the  Americans  to  time. 
More  than  a month  before  the  boycott  was  scheduled  to  go  into 
effect,  President  Roosevelt  issued  instructions  to  Secretary  Met- 
cf  If  enjoining  him  to  enforce  the  exclusion  e.ct  with  less  rigor, 
and  before  it  had  been  in  force  six  months,  resolutions  and  bills 
were  being  introduced  into  both  houses  of  Congress  calling  for 

modifications  of  the  law,  or  for  resolutions  providing  for  invest-  : 

1 

igation  by  experts  in  order  that  all  the  information  on  the  subject' 
might  be  available  for  Congressmen  to  use  in  framing  a new  laW  • 

With  the  rssumption  of  this  new  attitude  on  the  part  of  the  United  ’ 

States,  the  boycott  soon  dwindled  away  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  I 

! 

certain  agitators  to  keep  it  going. 

In  addition  to  ameliorating  the  conditions  of  Chinese 
travelers  and  students  in  this  country,  other  efforts  were  made  at 
bringing  about  better  understanding  between  the  peoples  of  the  two 

1 

countries.  It  was  about  this  time  that  the  part  of  the  indemnity 
fund  which  had  not  been  used  by  the  United  States  in  settling 
claims  of  citizens  for  damages  received  in  the  Boxer  uprising  was 
returned  to  the  Chinese  Government.  This,  coupled  with  the  gen- 
erous gifts  from  the  United  States  to  the  famine  relief  of  China, 


52 

served  to  allay  much  of  the  bitterness  of  the  Chinese  and  to  bring 
fn  end  to  the  boycott.  "The  boycott  will  cease  some  time  after 
the  causes  which  produced  it  have  ceased  to  operate,  and  not  soon- 
er," srid  Chester  Holcomb  in  The  Outlook,  December  30,  1905,  and 
the  future  disclosed  that  he  was  right.  Thanks  to  the  government 
officials  and  the  merchant  and  industrial  classes  of  America,  con- 
ciliation was  brought  about  before  any  real  damage  had  been  done  to 
American  commercial  interests  in  China.  This  one  ca.se  considered 
alone  would  not  make  out  a very  strong  case  for  economic  pressure 
a s a means  of  bringing  an  offending  nation  to  terms,  but  consider- 
ing it  in  conjunction  with  the  preceding  cases,  and  considering 
the  disunified  action  of  the  Chinese  nation,  government  and  people, 
at  this  time,  it  cannot  be  considered  a failure,  especially  since 
the  object  desired  was  attained. 


■;  ■ | 


53 


CHAPTER  VII.  THE  TURKISH  BOYCOTT  OF  AUSTRO -HUNGARIAN  GOODS.1 

Two  Turkish  provinces,  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina,  were  hand- 
ed over  to  the  administration  of  Austria-Hungary  in  accordance  with 
the  terns  of  the  Treaty  of  Berlin  (1878),  but  the  understanding  was 
that  their  allegiance  to  the  Sultan  was  in  no  wise  impaired.  No 
time  was  set  for  the  termination  of  the  Austro-Hungarian  control, 
and  there  was  a tacit  understanding  among  the  powers  that  when  the 
final  breakup  of  the  Ottoman  Empire  took  place  Austria-Hungary 
should  assume  the  sovereignty  as  well  as  the  administration  of  these 
provinces.  But  the  surprising  rejuvenescence  of  the  "sick  man  of 
Europe'  at  the  time  of  the  establishment  of  constitutional  govern- 
ment under  the  auspices  of  the  Young  Turk  Party  in  July,  I908, 
alarmed  the  Government  of  Austria-Hungary,  for  it  feared  the  rise  of 
a new,  strong  Turkey  which  would  declare  its  sovereignty  and  rights 
of  administration  over  all  of  its  territory.  To  forestall  any  such 
possibility,  Austria  resolved  to  annex  the  two  provinces,  and  thus 
make  them  an  integral  part  of  her  own  empire.  Accordingly,  on  the 
7th  of  October,  Emperor  Francis  Joseph  announced  to  the  world  the 
formal  annexation  of  Bosnia-Herzegovina  to  the  Austro-Hungarian 
Empire.  This,  of  course,  brought  vigorous  protests  from  the  Porte 
and  from  the  Balkan  countries  bordering  on  Bosnia-Herzegovina,  but 
the  only  response  Austria-Hungary  gave  was  to  mobilize  troops  along 
her  eastern  frontier  and  in  the  annexed  territory.  Turkey  did  not 
wish  to  go  to  war.  Neither  did  she  w ish  to  submit  to  such  an  im- 

The  basis  of  the  general  historical  data  of  this  chapter  is, 

Ho 1 t and  Chi 1 t on : The  History  of  Europe  from  1862  to  1914 . 

— "r  


1 


. 


54 


position  without  £ struggle.  The  Government  took  no  action,  but 
popular  feeling  was  aroused  and  a general  boycott  of  everything 
Austrian  was  soon  underway. 

The  best  idea  of  the  sequence  of  events  in  connection 
with  this  boycott  can  be  got  from  a series  of  extracts  from  the 
bi-weekly  articles  written  for  The  Economist  (London)  by  its  spec- 
ial correspondent  in  Austria-Hungary.  The  first  notice  of  the 
boycott  recognizing  it  as  a potent  force  appeared  October  31,  I908: 

"Austrian  industry  is  suffering  severely  from  the  boycott 
of  Austrian  goods  which  is  being  organized  in  Servia  and  Turkey." 

After  this,  no  more  appeared  in  the  column  conducted  by 
the  Austrian  special  correspondent  until  the  number  of  November  28, 
when  the  following  appeared  under  the  date  of  November  24: 

"Financial  and  commercial  circles  in  Austria  are  looking 
forward  with  the  greatest  anxiety  to  the  development  of  the  boycott- 
ing movement  in  the  East.  Fears  are  expressed  that  Austrian  indus- 
try may  lose  one  of  its  best  markets.  The  ships  of  the  Austrian 
Lloyd  have  been  warned  not  to  land  in  Turkish  ports,  and  have  been 
obliged  to  bring  their  passengers  home  again.  Either  the  Turkish 
authorities  have  not  the  power  to  put  a stop  to  this  movement,  or 
else  they  secretly  encourage  it.  The  travelling  represent  tives 
of  the  big  Austrian  exporting  firms  describe  the  state  of  affairs 
as  quite  desperate.  The  traveller  of  a Reichenberg  cloth  manu- 
facturer returned  home  a week  ago  instead  of  extending  his  travels 
to  the  middle  of  December  as  usual.  He  went  to  Egypt  first,  and 
announced  his  coming  to  the  firm's  customers  in  Constantinople ; but 
he  was  informed  that  no  orders  of  any  kind  would  be  given,  that  he 


55 


had  best  not  show  himself  in  Turkey,  where  he  would  be  badly  re- 
ceived. Beyrut  and  Smyrna  firms  gave  the  same  advice.  The  boy- 
cott of  Austrian  goods  is  now  being  carried  out  systematically. 

At  first  it  seemed  a thing  of  no  consequence,  and  only  happened  in 

single  instances  in  seaports.  But  now  local  committees  have  been 
formed  in  all  Turkish  cities  and  towns,  who  organize  the  boycott 

and  see  that  it  is  everywhere  carried  out No  one  dares  to 

oppose  their  orders,  since  everybody  who  purchases  Austrian  goods 

is  accused  of  committing  high  treason In  many  instances 

good  old  customers  in  Turkey  have  sent  their  usual  orders  at  the 
beginning  of  the  winter,  but  afterwards  cancelled  them  by  letter  or 
telegram,  declaring  they  would  not  be  able  to  sell  the  goods.  In 
other  cases  the  goods  have  been  sent,  but  the  ships  were  not  allow- 
ed to  land,  nor  were  the  firms  who  ordered  them  allowed  to  take 
them  on  shore.  Several  Lloyd  steamers  have  already  returned  to 
Trieste  with  Austrian  goods  that  no  Turkish  port  would  receive. 

The  Austrian  diplomatists  were  asked  to  interfere,  but  all  they 
have  succeeded  in  obtaining  is  that  the  mob  is  not  allowed  to 
attack  the  Llo3'-d  steamers  or  rob  the  Austrian  merchants  settled  in 
Turkey.  No  one  can  be  compelled  to  buy  Austrian  goods  if  he  has 
a mind  not  to.  The  result  of  this  state  of  things  is  that  the 
shares  of  the  Lloyd  Company,  which  for  years  were  quoted  at  over 
TOO  crowns,  now  stand  at  the  figure  of  400.  But  besides  the  Lloyd 
Company  the  railways  suffer  from  the  boycott,  since  no  goods  are 
sent  to  Trieste  from  any  part  of  the  Empire." 

Two  weeks  later,  in  the  issue  of  December  12,  the  Aus- 
trian correspondent  made  the  following  comments,  along  with  some 
others  on  the  boycott  situation: 


! 


a ''  * .tv  I 


56 


"The  returns  of  Austria's  exports  to  Turkey  up  to  the 
month  of  October  were  published  yesterday.”*  The  boycott  of  Aus- 
trian goods  began  immediately  after  the  announcement  of  the  annex- 
ation of  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina.  The  returns  do  not  show  what  was 
exported  during  October  alone,  but  comprise  the  months  of  July, 
August,  September,  and  October.  Turkey  n@^t  have  stopped  import- 
ing Turkish  caps  (fezes)  all  at  once,  for  the  number  exported  dur- 
ing those  four  months  in  1907  was  750,000,  in  1908  only  234,000, 
which  means,  of  course,  that  in  October,  1903,  none  at  9,11  were  ex- 
ported. The  exports  of  sugar,  timber  for  building,  cotton  text- 
iles, paper,  rod  iron,  have  all  decreased  considerably,  but  the 
true  stfte  of  affairs  will  only  be  known  when  Austrian  manufacturers 
cease  to  send  goods  to  Turkey.  The  figures  in  the  returns  natur- 
ally only  apply  to  the  goods  which  were  sent,  and  no  notice  is  tak- 
en of  the  fi  ct  that  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  goods  could  not 
be  landed,  and  had  to  be  taken  back  to  Trieste." 

Under  the  date  of  January  5,  1909,  this  correspondent 

wrote : 


"The  Turkish  boycott  against  Austrian  and  Hungarian  ships 
has  not  in  the  slightest  degree  abated,  but  is  spreading  day  by 

day All  Llojrd  steamers  tha,t  arrive  in  Turkish  ports  are 

boycotted.  No  boats  come  to  them  to  land  the  passengers,  and  when 
the  captain  lands  them  with  his  own  boPts,  they  cannot  obtain  a 
conveyrnce  to  take  them  to  their  destination,  or  even  a man  to  car- 
ry their  luggage Manufacturers  and  merchants  are  seriously 

considering  the  question  whether  retaliation  v.Till  not  become 


1 December  7 , 1908. 


necessary  as  the  only  means  of  making  Turkey  come  to  her  senses. 
Turkey  does  not  appear  to  fea.r  retaliation,  because  its  ex- 
ports to  Austria-Hungary  are  much  inferior  to  its  imports  from 
these  countries.” 

Before  another  article  from  this  correspondent's  pen 
appeared,  Austria's  offer  of  financial  compensation  for  Turkish 
rights  in  the  two  provinces  had  been  tentatively  a.ccepted,  so  in 
the  issue  of  January  23  attention  is  given  to  the  effect  of  this 
turn  of  events  on  affairs  in  the  dual  monarchy? 

"The  Vienna  Bourse,  and,  indeed,  the  Vienna  and  Budapest 
world  of  business  have  had  a very  lively  week,  in  consequence  of 
the  almost  unexpected  acceptance  of  Austria-Hungary's  offer  to  pay 
for  the  consent  of  Turkey  to  the  annexation  of  Bosnia  and  Herzegov- 

ina- It  was  assumed  from  the  very  first  that  an  immediate 

stop  would  be  put  to  the  boycott  against  Austrian  and  Hungarian 
goods  in  Turkey,  and  the  prices  of  the  shares  which  had  suffered 
most  from  the  boycott  rose  very  high  indeed.  Turkish  lottery 
oonds  from  IV5  to  134;  Turkish  Tobacco  Monopoly  Company  from  314  to 
332. 50;  Fez  Manufactory  from  500  to  553;  Lloyd  Navigation  Company 
from  400  to  423.  The  shares  of  the  Orient  Railways  rose  by  20 
crowns  five  minutes  after  the  news  had  been  received." 

In  the  issue  of  February  6,  the  whole  matter  was  summed 
up  with  a rough  estimate  of  the  loss  Austria-Hungary  had  suffered: 

"The  boycott  has  lasted  four  months,  and  has  cost  Aus- 
trian industry,  Austrian  railways,  and  Austrian  navigation  very 
nearly  a milliard  crowns.  The  financial  sacrifice  which  Austria- 
Hungary  made  officially  to  pacify  Turkey  is  very  small  when  cornnar- 


58 


ed  to  the  sacrifice  which  the  boycott  has  extorted." 

This  testimony  of  The  Economist's  special  correspondent 
is  confirmed  by  abundant  witnesses  whose  reputations  for  veracity 
md  accuracy  go  unquestioned.  The  foreign  affairs  department  of 
the  Fortnightly  Review  for  January,  1 909, said: 

"The  boycott  has  proved  an  instrument  of  formidable  power. 
The  damage  to  Austro-Hungarian  interests  has  been  immense.  The 
commercial  war  has  done  more  than  anything  else  to  shatter  the  cal- 
culations of  Baron  Aerenthal . This  was  a form  of  reprisals  upon 
which  the  Ballplatz  had  not  reckoned  for  a single  moment.  The  boy- 
cott has  been  a popular  movement.  It  has  been  enforced  in  every 
harbour.  Even  the  threats  of  the  Turkish  authorities  could  not 
induce  the  porters  to  unload,  the  Austrian  ships  and  to  handle  Aus- 
trian goods." 

The  New  International  Year  Book  for  I909  summarized  the 
events  connected  with  the  boycott  as  follows: 

"The  principle  on  which  Austria  seemed  at  first  to  take 
her  stand  was  that  having  taken  nothing  from  Tirkey  she  could  not 
admit  Turkey's  right  to  claim  compensation.  She  urged  that  she 
was  giving  back  more  than  enough  in  restoring  Novi -Bazar . 1 But 
the  Turkish  boycott  of  Austrian  goods,  which  prevailed  in  the  clos- 
ing months  of  1908,  brought  Austria  to  a more  serious  vi ew  of  the 
situftion,  and  she  finally  acceded  to  certain  of  the  Turkish  de- 
mands: namely,  the  increo.se  of  Turkish  customs  duties  to  fifteen 
per  cent.,  the  establishment  of  Turkish  monopolies  in  ciga.rette 
paper  and  matches,  the  personal  and  religious  freedom  of  the  H0s- 

1 A former  Turkish  sa.n.iak  or  small  district  now  in  Jugo-Slavia. 


59 

lemo  in  Bosnia-Herzegovina,  the  eventual  suppression  of  the  Aus- 
trim  postoffices  in  Turkey,  modifications  of  the  capitulations  and 
abrogation  of  certain  privileges  as  to  the  Albanian  Catholics. 

But  to  the  demand  of  Turkey  for  an  indemnity  of  100,000,000  francs 
Austria  at  iirst  refused  to  accede.  Later,  however,  she  offered 
50,000,000  francs  and  finally  struck  a bargain  at  2,500,000  pounds 
(Turkish) ( 62 , 500 ,000  francs ) . " 1 


T.iis  payment  on  the  part  of  Austria~Hunga.ry  to  Turkey  was 
in  reality  more  significant  than  any  other  of  the  concessions,  al- 
though it  was  disguised  as  "a  grant  in  consideration  of  the  former 
Turkish  State  properties  in  Bosnia  and  Herzegovina."2 3  Dr.  E.  J. 
Dillon  writing  on  "Foreign  Affairs"  in  the  February  ( I909)  number  of 


The  Contemporary  Review  said  this  on  the  subject: 

r'er  more  significant  is  the  financial  compensation  offer- 
ed. To  begin  with,  it  represents  a departure  on  the  part  of  Baron 
Aenrenthal  from  the  position  he  took  up  immediately  after  the 
annexation.  He  then  declared  that  the  matter  concerned  only 

Austria-Hungary  end  the  incorporated  provinces,  and  that  he  could 
not  entertain  the  demand  for  money. "3 


ing  Age  reiused  to  admit  that  the  boycott  ws s the 
only  instrument  that  had  brought  about  the  concessions  on  the  part 
of  Austria,  and  declared  that  the  compensation  was  "in  reality  a 
fine  imposed  upon  a violator  of  treaties  by  the  moral  sense  of  Fu- 
rope , and  that  "the  boycott  of  Austri s,n  goods  could  never  of  it- 


1 p .74 . 

2 Annual  Remister , 1 909 , p . 7 1 4 . 

3 95 : 245,  February,  I909. 


60 

oelf  have  availed  to  wring  from  her."1 2  Even  though  this  be  true, 
it  does  not  imply  any  impairment  of  the  argument  for  the  broader 
aspects  of  economic  coercion.  In  fact  it  is  a confirmation  of  the 
plan  set  forth  in  the  Covenant  of  the  League  of  Nations  according 
to  which  all  intercourse,  commercial  and  otherwise , between  the 
nationals  of  the  member  states  and  those  of  the  offending  state 
would  be  cut  off.  Thus  a most  powerful  economic  pressure  would  be 
exerted,  but  it  would  be  ridiculous  to  say  that  no  moral  pressure 
was  being  applied  at  the  same  time.  In  the  case  of  the  Turkish 
boycott,  one  nation  was  exerting  economic  pressure  and  moral  press- 
ure,'*  and  several  other  nations  were  exercising  moral  pressure 
alone.  Under  those  conditions,  Austria-Hungary  held  out  a little 
over  three  months.  What  would  have  been  the  result  had  all  the 
nations  which  contented  themselves  with  applying  moral  influence 
ranged  themselves  alongside  of  Turkey  in  declaring  and  enforcing  a 
boycott  of  everything  Austro-Hungarian? 


1 February  6,  1909,  260:381. 

2 Montenegro  and  Servia  also  declared  boycotts,  but  they  did  not 
get  into  operation  until  negotiations  for  settlement  with  Turk- 
ey were  well  under  way.  However  the  fact  that  they  had  enter- 
ed the  lists  when  they  did  may  have  had  something  to  do  with 
the  readiness  with  which  Austria  acceded  to  the  Turkish  de- 
mands . 


61 


CHAPTER  VIII.  SOME  OTHER  CASES. 

In  addition  to  the  cases  already  cited,  there  are  several 
others  of  the  same  kind  which  might  be  treated  in  the  same  manner, 
would  time  and  space  permit.  However,  in  order  to  round  out  the 
study,  this  chapter  will  be  devoted  to  mentioning  a/nd  giving  a sum- 
mary of  the  events  connected  with  these  cases. 

One  case  was  that  of  the  Prussian  Government  against  Great 
Britain  in  1822.  The  Navigation  Acts  had  developed  into  restrict- 
ions stating  that  "no  sorts  of  wine  other  than  Rhenish,  no  sorts  of 
spices,  grocery,  tobacco,  potashes,  pitch,  tar,  salt,  resin,  timber, 
or  olive  oil  should  be  imported  from  the  Netherlands  or  Germany  in 
sny  ship  whatsoever."^  This  brought  a reply  from  Prussia  in  the 
shape  of  a great  increase  of  port  dues  on  ships  belonging  to  na.tions 
that  did  not  admit  the  ships  of  Prussia  on  a.  reciprocal  basis.  To 
the  remons trainee  of  the  British  Government  which  followed  at  once, 
the  Prussian  Minis ter  to  England  answered:  "You  have  set  us  the  ex- 
ample by  your  port  and  light  charges,  and  your  discriminating  duties 
on  Prussian  ships,  and  we  have  not  gone  beyond  the  limits  of  that 
example.  Hitherto  we  have  confined  the  measure  of  our  port  and 
tonnage  charges  to  ships  only;  but  it  is  the  intention  of  my  Govern- 
ment next  yea.r  to  immitate  you  still  more  closely,  by  imposing  dis- 
criminating duties  on  the  goods  imported  in  your  ships.  Our  object 
is  a just  protection  to  our  own  navigation,  and  so  long  as  the 
measure  of  our  protection  does  not  exceed  that  which  is  afforded  in 
your  ports  to  Prussian  ships,  wre  cannot  see  with  v;het  reason  you 


1 Levi,  Leone:  History  of  British  Commerce,  part  iii,  Chapter  II. 


62 


crn  complain."1  The  English  Government  saw  the  point  and  immed- 
iately negotiations  were  begun  for  a reciprocity  treaty  with  Pruss- 
ia . 

Another  striking  case  is  that  of  the  boycott  carried  on 
by  the  Chinese  against  Japanese  products  in  I908.  A Japanese 
steamer  was  siezed  by  Chinese  officials  on  the  charge  that  it  was 
engaged  in  smuggling  arms  and  ammunition  to  the  Chinese  revolution- 
ists. "There  was  no  mistake  about  the  cargo  and  apparently  none 
about  the  intent,  but  the  Japanese  Government  claimed  that  the 
steriner  had  been  overhauled  in  Portuguese  and  not  in  Chinese  waters. 
Tokyo  forced  Peking  to  apologize,  to  pay  indemnity,  to  salute  the 
Japanese  flag  when  it  was  rehoisted  over  the  Tatsu-Maru2,  and  to 
punish  the  Chinese  customs  officials  who  had  captured  the  vessel."^ 
There  was  an  outburst  of  indignation  in  China  which  expressed  it- 
self in  the  form  of  a boycott  of  everything  Japanese.  Almost  im- 
mediately the  Government  of  Japan  adopted  a more  conciliatory 
attitude;  their  consul  at  Canton  who  had  refused  to  take  any  pro- 
pitiatory measures  was  recalled;  Je.pan  conceded  certain  points  of 
dispute  over  the  railways  of  China;  and  agreed  that  no  Chinese 
revolutionaries  should  find  refuge  in  Japan.4 

Following  the  award  of  the  Shantung  province  to  Ja.pan  by 
the  Conference  of  Versailles  in  1919,  another  boycott  was  declared 
by  the  Chinese  against  Japanese  wares  . China,  refused  to  enter  in- 

1 Ibid.,  p . 164 . 

2 The  name  of  the  captured  Japanese  steamer. 

3 Worlds  Work,  June,  1908,  p. 10305 

4 The  International  Settlement,  p.89. 


to  any  negotir tions  whatsoever  concerning  the  matter  until  the 
Japanese  Government  "should  cease  to  occupy  the  concession  of  Tsing 
tao,  the  Kiaochow  leased  territory,  and  the  Tsingtao-Tsinan  railway 
and  should  make  unconditional  restoration  of  these  concessions  and 
properties  to  China."1  Mr.  Reginald  V/heeler,  who  was  an  eye  wit- 
ness of  the  boycott  movement  in  Shanghai,  gives  the  following 
account:  "The  boycott  was  taken  up  by  the  merchants  and  was  rigidly 
enforced.  The  Japanese  goods  in  their  stores  were  taken  out  and 
burned;  Japanese  banknotes  were  refused;  the  great  Chinese  depart- 
ment stores  in  Shanghai  pledged  themselves  not  to  order  more  Japan- 
ese goods.  Chinese  stevedores  refused  to  work  on  Japanese  boats; 
the  ricksha  coolies  refused  to  haul  Japanese  passengers.  It  be- 
came dangerous  for  even  a.  foreigner  to  anpear  on  the  streets  wear- 
ing a straw  hat  made  in  Japan.”2 

By  April  of  the  next  year  (1920),  "Japan  faced  new  diff- 
iculties in  respect  to  finances The  stock  market  was  swamped 

by  securities.  Tokio  Exchange  Stock  dropped  210  points 

Contributing  causes  of  the  crash  were  the  tightening  of  the  money 
market,  the  loss  of  gold  and  the  adverse  balance  of  trade.  The 
excess  of  imports  during  the  first  three  months  of  1920  was 
$ 1 30 ,000 , 000 , equal  to  nearly  50  per  cent,  of  total  exports.  The 
Chinese  boycott  played  an  important  part  in  the  unfavorable  trade 
balance . 

In  the  same  month,  appeared  the  following  statement  based 

1 Current  History,  June,  1920,  p.463. 

2 Ibid.,  April,  1920,  p.o2. 

5 Ibid.,  June,  1920,  p.4o3. 


54 


on  statistics  which  appeared  in  "Hillard's  Review"  and  in  "The 
Herald  of  Asia":  "The  serious  decline  in  the  trade  of  the  Japanese 
steamship  companies  is  seen  in  the  fall  from  154  tons  per  trip  in 
1913  to  an  average  of  barely  seventy-one  tons  per  trip  during  the 
first  ten  months  of  1 0 1 9 * Cotton  yarn,  paper,  cotton  cloth,  um- 

brellas, canvas  bags,  matches  showed  a net  decrease  of  70  per  cent.; 
prtent  medicines,  looking  glasses,  earthen  ware,  soap,  hats  and 
caps,  fms,  cotton  hosiery,  cotton  tissues,  satin,  a decrease  of 
54  per  cent.""* 

In  May,  1920,  the  Japanese  consul  at  Tientsin  said  the 
boycott  had  wrought  "incalculable  loss"  to  Japanese  commerce-,  and 
in  October  the' Mini chi  (Japanese  newspaper)  said  that  the  movement 
was  "growing  in  vehemence,  with  the  result  that  an  increasing  num- 
ber of  embittered  Japanese  merchants  are  returning  to  Japan.  Many 
of  the  men  declared  that  unless  some  resolute  steps  are  taken  by 
the  Japanese  authorities,  Japanese  commercial  interests  would  be 
seriously  undermined."  The  loss  sustained  by  the  import  trade 
for  the  month  of  August  alone  was  declared  to  be  over  $17,000,000.^ 

In  the  middle  of  the  following  year,  the  Mimichi  announc- 
ed that  the  Council  Extraordinary  meeting  in  Tokio  had  recognized 
the  "necessity  of  withdrawing  the  Japanese  garrison  now  stationed 
in  the  zone  a.long  the  Shantung  Railroad..  ..and  that  delay  in  carry- 
ing out  this  withdrawal  had  been  due  solely  to  the  failure  of  China 

to  provide  an  adequate  policing  force Besides  the  withdrawal, 

it  was  planned  bo  abandon  Japanese  rights  over  collieries  and  other 

T Ibid.,  April,  1920,  p.62. 

2 Ibid.,  Hay,  1920,  p.253. 

3 Ibid.,  December,  1920,  0.457. 

4 Ibid.,  p.458. 


65 


mines  and  salt  fields,  as  well  as  other  rights  acquired  under  the 
Versailles  Treaty.”1 2 3  However  it  was  not  until  the  tine  of  the 
Washington  Conference  that  the  treaty  bet ween  the  two  powers  defin- 
itely arranged  the  terms  of  the  withdrawal.  The 'Washington  corres- 
pondent of  the  New  York  Tribune  wrote:  "Japan  is  as  well  pleased  as 

China,  for  the  anti- Japanese  boycott  throughout  China  has  more  than 

o 

offset  any  advantage  which  Shantung  gave  to  Japan."  Altruism  had 
little  to  do  with  her  surrender  of  her  rights  in  Shantung;  as  the 

■z 

Tokyo  Chumai  Shogyo  put  it,  she  "ate  hunble  pie."^  There  is  little 
doubt  but  what  the  Chinese  boycott  was  the  big  factor  in  bringing 
her  to  see  things  from  China's  point  of  view. 

Another  recent  case  is  that  of  the  Int ernational  Feder- 
ation of  Trade  Unions  against  the  "White  Terror"  Government  of 
Hungary.  Bela  Kun ' s communist  government  had  been  overthrown  by 
the  Whites  under  Admiral  Horthy,  and  in  the  so-called  reign  of 
terror  which  followed,  many  atrocities  were  committed  against  the 
supporters  of  Kun  according  to  reports  which  reached  Western  and 
Central  Europe.  The  International  Federation  of  Trade  Unions 
appealed  "to  the  workers  of  all  countries  to  refuse,  beginning  June 
20,  1920,  to  do  any  work  which  might  directly  or  indirectly  benefit 
the  Hungary  of  the  White  Terror.  Beginning  June  20,  1920,  no 
train  shall  cross  the  Hungarian  frontier,  no  ship  shall  enter  Hun- 
gary, and  no  letter  or  telegram  shall  enter  or  leave  Hungary.  All 
traffic  should  be  stopped.  Wo  coal,  no  raw  material,  no  food- 

1 Ibid.,  August,  1921,  p.887. 

2 Literary  Digest,  February  11,  1922,  p.12. 

3 Ibid.,  May  20,  I922,  p.19. 


66 


stuffs,  nothing  shall  enter  the  country."1 2 3  According  to  the 

Journal  de  Geneve.  a Swiss  publication,  the  initiative  was  taken 

in  this  movement  by  the  English,  French,  and  Dutch  Federations  of 

Labor,  while  the  Federations  of  Germany,  Austria,  Italy,  Czecho- 

o 

Slovakia,  and  Switzerland  fell  in  line.- 

"Postal  and  telegraphic  communication  between  Hungary  and 
Austria  was  almost  immediately  completely  suspended.  At  Austrian 
railway  terminals  the  workmen  sidetracked  all  cars  destined  for 
Hungarian  cities,  and  the  sidings  were  soon  filled  with  this  inter- 
rupted traffic.  Similar  action  was  taken  in  Jugo-slavia  and  Po- 
land. The  Czechs  to  some  degree  ignored  the  boycott  because  of 
unf riendliness  for  Austria The  other  countries,  however,  in- 

cluding even  the  labor  unions  of  Great  Britain,  joined  vigorously 
in  the  boycott,  and  within  a few  days  it  was  apparent  that  Hungary 
was  feeling  its  effects  to  a more  serious  extent  than  the  Govern- 
ment admitted At  the  middle  of  July,  when  this  article  went 

to  press,  the  boycott  wa s still  tightening  its  grip  on  Hungary,  but 
the  cessation  of  mail  communication,  coupled  with  the  significance 
of  the  Horthy  Government,  prevented  the  receipt  of  fuller  details 
on  the  subject. n> 

The  boycott  "was  lifted  on  August  9,  after  the  leaders 
had  decided  that  its  continuance  would  be  useless.  A proclamation 
issued  by  the  Amsterdam  labor  executive  to  the  workers  of  Austria 
enumerates  the  reasons  why  the  embargo  failed.4  In  the  first 

1 From  the  Appea.l  of  the  International  Federation  of  Trade 

Unions  as  published  in  The  Hat ion.  July  3,  1920,  p.27. 

2 Living  Age,  August  14,  1920,  p.394. 

3 Current  History,  August,  1920,  p.381. 

4 Ibid.,  October,  1920,  p.76. 


67 

place,  the  statement  says,  the  co-operation  of  the  workers  of  Aus- 
tria, Czecho-slovakia,  Rumania  and  Jugo-slavia  proved  inadequate 
for  lack. of  substantial  support  from  workers  in  countries  without 
frontiers  in  common  with  Hungary.  The  success  of  the  blockade  was 
expected  on  the  assumption  that  the  workers  of  Western  Europe  would 
exert  pressure,  on  their  Governments  in  favor  of  intervention  against 
the  White  Terror."  In  other  words,  they  did  not  expect  to  bring 
the  Hungarian  Government  to  terms  by  economic  pressure  alone,  but 
expected  to  influence  their  governments  to  intervene  with  their 
armies.  They  were  not  prepared  to  wait  for  the  results  of  the 
economic  boycott  in  Hungary  and  depend  on  that  to  get  results,  and 
when  the  Powers  did  not  intervene  as  soon  as  they  had  hoped,  the 
whole  thing  was  dropped. 

"In  the  second  place,  the  Magyar  working  class  was  so  ex- 
hausted by  suffering  from  the  White  Terror  that  it  was  unable  to 
act  with  the  workers  of  neighboring  states."  The  revival  of  the 
Communist  Revolution  was  another  part  of  their  program.  In  add- 
ition to  stirring  up  armed  external  intervention,  they  expected  to 
bring  about  the  overthrow  of  Horthy's  Government  by  internal  forces. 

"In  the  third  place,  the  failure  of  the  blockade  is  due 
to  the  indirect  support  accorded  to  the  terrorist  regime  by  some  of 
the  Entente  Governments  desirous  of  using  the  armed  forces  of  Hun- 
gary for  their  own  ends."  Instead  of  intervening,  as  the  boycott- 
ers  desired,  the  Governments  were,  recording  to  this,  giving  rid 
and  comfort  to  "the  enemy." 


To  sum  up,  there  are  four  main  reasons  why  this  instance 


68 

of  economic  coercion  failed:  1 ) an  organization  making  up  a small 

pert  of  the  population  in  general  or  even  of  the  laboring  population 
curried  on  the  boycott,  and  this  made  it  differ  from  the  other  in- 
stances cited  in  which  all  classes  of  people  co-operated  together; 
(2)  the  Federations  themselves  of  some  countries  took  part  only 
he  If -heart edly , especially  those  of  Cz echo -Slovakia  and  Germany, 
and  this  weakened  it  at  vital  points;  (3)  according  to  their  own 
statements  given  above,  they  were  not  using  the  boycott  as  a weapon 
but  a s an  advertising  medium,  and  when  it  failed  in  the  latter 
c pacity,  they  did  not  wait  to  see  whether  it  would  truly  function 
a s a weapon  or  not;  (4)  the  Governments  were  often,  in  fact  usually, 
out  of  sympathy  with  the  movement,  and  this,  coupled  with  the  fact 
that  large  numbers  of  laborers  vrere  out  of  the  ranks  of  the  Feder- 
ations and  therefore  not  definitely  co-operating,  made  failure  al- 
mo s t in  evi tabl e . 


1 Nation,  September  11,  1920,  p.236. 


69 


CHAPTER  IX.  CONCLUSIONS. 

What  conclusions ' can  one  draw  after  examining  the  fore- 
going crses?  First,  in  no  one  of  them  can  economic  coercion  be 
a total  failure  as  a substitute  for  war,  although  there  are  some, 

such  as  the  third  non-inporta  tion  agreement  of  the  colonies  and  the 
embargo  and  non-intercourse  acts  of  1306-1812,  when  other  events 
have  clouded  the  effects  of  the  policy,  or  7/hen  the  existence  of 
war  has  a.cted  as  a neutralizing  agent.  In  practically  every  one  of 

•i 

these  cases,  the  pressure  has  been  exerted  by  one  nation  alone 
against  another  lone  nation.  If  one  nation,  working  alone,  can 
force  another  to  terms  by  the  exertion  of  economic  pressure,  as  was 
done  in  the  cases  given,  how  much  sooner  results  would  be  secured 
if  several  nations  cut  off  relations  with  the  offending  country  as 
provided  for  in  the  plan  of  the  League  of  Nations.  It  is  generally 
admitted  that  such  coercion  would  be  irresis table , and  that,  after 
?n  experience  or  two,  the  mere  threat  of  such  pressure  would  be 
sufficient  in  most  cases. 

One  of  the  things  shown  in  the  historical  section  of  this 
study  is  that  it  is  not  at  all  necessary  to  bring  a nation  to  the 
point  of  starvation  before  it  is  ready  to  make  some  kind  of  terms. 
Because  men  will  patiently  and  silently  suffer  business  losses  in 
time  of  war  is  no  indication  that  they  will  do  the  same  in  time  of 
commercial  war.  In  fact,  history  shows  that  men  complain  very 
readily  and  vociferously  under  such  circumstances.  If  a man's  bus- 
iness is  suffering  because  his  country  is  engaged  in  war  with 

1 An  exception  is  the  case  against  Austria  when  Servia  and  Nonte- 
negro  joined  Turkey  in  boycotting  the  dual  monarchy . 


mother  nation,  he  thinks  of  his  sons  and  of  his  neighbors'  sons, 
who  are  out  there  "somewhere"  in  the  fight,  suffering  as  no  busi- 
ness loss  can  possibly  make  him  suffer,  end  he  stifles  his  com- 
plaints. The  snirit  of  self-sacrifice  permeates  the  whole  nation 
and  he  is  ashamed  to  find  fault  about  a financial  loss.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  a man's  business  is  suffering  because  his  country 
is  cut  off  from  commercial  relations  with  other  nations  as  a punish- 
ment for  some  offense  against  international  morality,  he  is  not  go- 
ing to  bear  his  losses  silently  end  charge  them  up  to  patriotism. 

The  whole  affair  is  reduced  to  a business  basis,  and  he  is  looking  ; 
rt  it  from  the  standpoint  of  dollars  end  sense.  He  will  complain. 
He  will  protest.  He  will  demand  action  on  the  part  of  his  govern- 
ment that  the  grievance  of  the  other  nations  may  be  removed,  in 
order  that  his  business  may  go  on  as  before.  He  forgets  the  old 
ideas  of  "national  honor",  "national  pride",  and  a "place  in  the 
sun" • He  is  more  interested  in  crea ting  a commercial  empire  than 
he  is  in  building  up  a huge,  inchoate  political  empire  of  question- 
able value,  and  his  behavior  is  governed  accordingly. 

> 

The  use  of  economic  coercion  has  been  objected  to  by 
many  on  various  grounds.  Robert  G-oldsmith  complains  that  "it 
would  injure  non-combatants  more  than  responsible  aggressive  gov- 
ernments . " 1 So  does  war.  Economic  pressure  invariably  accompan- 
ies war,  and  non-combatants  usually  suffer  more  from  such  coercion 
applied  in  time  of  war  because  of  the  reasons  set  forth  in  the 
paragraph  above.  In  cas es  where  economic  pressure  a.lone  is  used  ; 
to  coerce  an  offending  nation,  it  is  not  necessary  to  bring  its  ' 

1 Goldsmith,  Robert:  A League  to  Enforce  Peace,  p.13o. 

! 


71 


inhabitants  to  the  point  of  starvation  before  the  government  is 
ready  to  make  concessions.  This  is  especially  true  of  countries 
having  a democratic  form  of  government,  but  even  the  most  desx)otic 
government  cannot  stand  out  long  against  the  united  will  of  an  agi- 
tated people.  Were  it  a case  of  helpless  women  and  children  being 
starved  to  death,  economic  pressure  would  be  even  more  horrible 
than  war,  but,  with  the  glamour  of  war  and  the  arousing  of  pugnacity 
end  hate  absent,  it  is  doubtful  whether  any  nation  would  ever  sub- 
mit to  its  government  permitting  it  to  arrive  at  such  a state. 

The  facts  presented  in  the  preceeding  chapters  bear  out  this  idea. 

One  of  the  most  com  ion  objections  raised  is  that  it  acts 

as  a boomerang.  It  causes  great  inconveniences  to  the  nation  that 

applies  it.  In  reply  to  this,  Viscount  Bryce  has  convincingly 

said:  "Whatever  that  inconvenience  might  be,  it  would  be  less  than 

the  evils  a war  would  cause,  and  it  could  not  last  long,  because  no 

excommunicated  State  could  support  for  more  than  a few  weeks  or 

months  the  painful  consequences  of  total  isolation  and  would  dread 

*| 

permanent  injury  to  its  commerce." 

> 

Another  objection  is  that  stated  by  J.  A.  Hobson  as  fol- 
low’s: "Though  postal,  railway  and  telegraphic  intercourse  could  be 
cut  off  easily  by  agreements  between  Governments , private  trading 
could  not  so  easily  be  stopped.  It  is  not  found  a simple  matter 
to  stop  all  trading  between  members  of  nations  actually  at  war  when 
national  sentiment  sides  strongly  with  the  legal  prohibition.  It 
might  be  much  more  difficult  to  prevent  all  commercial  intercourse 

1 Bryce,  James:  Intern'  tionel  Relations,  vol.1,  p.252. 


72 


for  private  gain  when  there  was  no  special  hostility  between  the 
two  nations  in  question.""'  This  handicap  was  present  in  every  one 
of  the  cases  presented  in  the  previous  chapters  of  this  study,  yet 
r large  degree  of  success  attended  the  majority  of  them.  There 
is  no  doubt  but  what  a one  hundred  per  cent,  perfect  application  of 
economic  pressure  would  get  much  quicker  results,  but  it  does  not 
necessarily  follow  that  it  would  take  twice  as  long  to  get  results 
with  one  only  fifty  per  cent,  efficient.  The  objection  stated  by 
Mr.  Hobson  cannot  be  considered  seriously  as  an  argument  against 
the  use  of  economic  pressure,  and  probably  he  did  not  intend  it  as 
such . 

Samuel  G-ompers  fears  that  a League  of  Nations  with  such 

an  effective  tool  "would  almost  certainly  become  the  repressive 

..  2 

tool  of  the  reactionary  and  privileged  forces  of  the  world. 

Here,  undoubtedly,  does  lie  a real  danger,  but  even  to  that  one 
may  cynically  reply  that  since  it  is  advocated  as  a substitute  for 
war,  its  taking  such  a turn  would  only  make  it  more  truly  a genuine 
substitute.  War  has  been  used  as  such  a tool.  The  terms  of 
peace  dictated  by  a conquering  nation  "are  not  in  themselves  con- 
formable to  the  sense  of  justice  or  the  reasonable  will  of  the 
parties  concerned,  but  are  a mere  register  of  the  preponderance  of 
power  when  the  conflict  is  brought  to  a close."  ; Such  a settle- 
ment merely  leaves  the  seeds  of  future  strife,  whether  it  is  en- 
forced by  military  or  economic  pressure,  but  that  cannot  be  a.ccept- 

1 Hobson,  J.  A.:  Towards  International  0- over  nine  nt . p-93- 

2 Enforced  Peace , p . 1 1 4 . 

3 Hobson,  J.  A.:  Democracy  after  the  7'ar,  p."7- 


J 


73 


ed  as  an  argument  against  economic  coercion  as  a substitute  for 
war.  It  merely  points  out  that  both  can  be  misused. 

J.  A.  Hobson  also  points  out  the  fact  that  the  use  of 
economic  coercion  involves  the  risk  that  the  boycotted  nation  might 
retaliate  with  force  of  arms  and  precipitate  war  itself. ^ This 
is  a possibility  which  cannot  be  ignored,  but  it  cannot  in  any 
sense  militate  as  an  argument  against  the  use  of  economic  pressure 
in  place  of  resorting  to  war.  In  the  one  case,  war  may  arise  as 
one  of  the  results,  but  it  is  only  a possibility  and  not  a necess- 
ary consequence.  In  the  other  case,  war  is  the  only  recognized 
means  of  chastising  the  recalcitrant  nation,  and  therefore  follows 
as  a natural  result  in  case  diplomatic  efforts  break  down  in  the 
attempt  to  make  an  adjustment. 

Militarism  "stands  as  the  surviving  incarnation  of  pure 
physical  force  in  a civilization  the  value  and  progress  of  which 
consist  in  the  supersession  of  physical  by  intellectual  and  moral 
direction.  The  feet  that  it  has  harnessed  to  its  chariot  some  of 
the  finest  activities  of  the  human  intellect  and  will  cannot  hide 
the  truth  that  it  stands  for  barbarism."  This  ides,  is  coming  to 
be  recognized  by  practical  men  more  and  more,  and  when  the  League 
to  Enforce  Peace  advocated  as  part  of  their  program  "economic 
pressure  through  non-intercourse" , this  plan  was  approved  by  the 
Chamber  of  Commerce  of  the  United  States,  the  National  Association 
of  Manufacturers , the  National  League  of  Commission  Merchants,  and 
the  National  Wholesale  Dry  C-oods  Association,  as  well  as  by  a.  large 

1 Hobs  on , J . A . : Towards  International  -ov  eminent , p . 94  . 

2 Hobs  on , J . A . : Democracy  after  the  War , p . 1 9 • 

- 


74 


number  of  state  and.  local  Chambers  of  Commerce  and  other  commercial 

1 

organizations  in  the  United  States  and  Canada. 

Although  economic  pressure  has  been  shown  to  be  success- 
ful when  applied  by  one  nation  against  one  other  nation,  there  can 
be  little  doubt  but  that  the  most  satisfactory  results  can  be  ob- 
t'  ined  when  some  type  of  international  co-operation  reinforced  by 
interne t ions  1 government  is  in  existence.  Whether  the  League  of 
Nations  fills  this  place  satisfactorily  or  not,  it  would  seem  that 
even  an  unsatisfactory  government  is  better  than  no  government  at 
all.  As  J.  L.  G-arvin,  the  English  journalist,  says:  Interorgan- 
ization between  governments  is  "unprecedented ; but  if  we  want  re- 
newed  wars  we  have  only  to  stick  to  precedent."' 

The  outstanding  obstacle  to  every  effort  to  perfect  a 
true  league  of  nations  is  the  jealous  fashion  in  which  the  individ- 
ual states  cling  to  every  vestige  of  their  own  sovereignty,  and 
there  must  be  sole  surrender  of  authority  before  there  can  be  any 
such  thing  as  an  international  government . "Society  implies  re- 
straint," said  Theodore  Marburg,  former  United  States  Minister  to 
Belgium.  "And  a.  society  of  nations  is  not  exempt  from  the  rule. 
The  one  license  which  it  ha.s  become  perfectly  clear  the  nations 
must  surrender  is  the  license  to  make  war  at  will.  ^ That  sur- 
render has  not  yet  been  made,  and  probably  will  not  be  made  until 
the  League  of  Nations,  or  its  successor  if  it  ha.s  one,  has  given  a 
practical  demons tre tion  of  the  efficacy  of  economic  means  of  co- 

1 Lake  Mohonk  Conference,  19 16,  p.215. 

2 G-arvin,  J.  L.:  The  Economic  Foundations  of  Peace,  p.105* 

3 Marburg,  Theodore:  League  of  Nations,  p.61. 


75 


ercion.  "The  right  of  the  individual  state  to  stand  out  against 

*t 

the  progress  of  the  world  is  open  to  serious  question."  As  the 
Newark  Advocate  puts  it,  "There  can't  be  any  concert  of  nations 

p 

while  each  one  of  them  wants  to  be  a,  soloist." 

To  sun  up  the  whole  thing,  the  principle  of  the  economic 
boycott  as  a means  of  coercing  recalcitrant  nations  is  sound,  and 
when  tried,  has  worked  except  when  disturbing  influences  have  pro- 
duced a state  of  mind  a iong  the  citizenry  of  the  boycotted  nation 
which  causes  them  to  consider  commercial  prosperity  secondary  as 
compared  with  some  other  object  pursued  by  the  government . When 
ideas  of  national  honor  and  national  pride  have  been  left  out  of 
the  reckoning,  the  boycott  has  invariably  been  found  to  work  satis- 
factorily. Since,  under  these  conditions,  economic  pressure  has 
been  found  so  satisfactory  as  a substitute  for  war,  it  should  be 
even  more  satisfactory  if  used  as  a means  of  backing  the  authority 
of  a society  of  nations . When  so  used,  it  is  probable  that  it 
would  be  almost  impossible  for  a single  nation  to  defy  the  injunct- 
ions of  an  international  court  or  to  ignore  the  moral  sense  of  the 
civilized  nations  of  the  earth. 

One  should  remember  that  in  the  cases  cited  in  the  prev- 
ious chapters,  the  nations  involved  have  invariably  been  of  the 
highly  civilized,  commercial  type.  Were  all  nations  of  that  type, 
armies  end  navies  could  probably  be  safely  scrapped  as  soon  as  a 
real  spirit  of  co-oper  tion  had  been  established  among  the  nations, 
and  machinery  of  interns tional  government  had  been  constructed  to 

1 Sayre,  Francis  Bowen:  Experiments  in  International  Administrat- 

ion. p.152. 

2 Current  Opinion,  Way,  1922,  p.5o3. 


J 


76 


direct  it.  However  there  are  backward  peoples  who  must  remain 
under  the  tutelage  of  the  more  advanced  nations,  and  for  the  pro- 
tection of  ^oth  classes  some  kind  of  an  armed  force  must  be  main- 
tained for  the  present  at  least.  As  strong  as  the  case  is  for 
economic  coercion  as  a substitute  for  war,  it  would  be  height  of 
folly  to  depend  on  it  alone  at  this  stage  of  the  world's  develop- 
ment . 

Neither  the  presence  nor  the  absence  of  arms  works  as  an 
absolute  insurance  of  peace.  Real  peace  is  based  upon  deeper 
foundations  and  will  not  come  until  there  is  a genuine  spirit  of 
peace  in  the  hearts  of  men.  You  can  disarm  a man,  but  if  he  is 
provoked  he  will  fight  anyhow  with  whatever  comes  to  hand,  provid- 
ing his  opponent  is  no  better  armed  than  himself.  However  there 
c?n  be  little  doubt  but  that  a reasonable  limitation  of  armaments 
would  go  a long  way  towards  the  pro  lotion  of  peace.  In  the 
countries  of  Western  Europe,  the  sale  of  firearms  is  regulated  and 
restricted  by  law,  while  in  the  United  States  anyone  may  buy  a gun. 
The  results  of  these  two  policies  are  reflected  in  the  number  of 
homocides  in  each  country.  Where  anyone  may  own  a gun  without  its 
being  any  other  person's  affair,  there  is  pretty  ant  to  be  some 
shooting  occasionally.  It  should  not  be  left  to  each  nation  to 
decide  whether  it  will  arm  or  not,  or  to  what  extent  it  shall  arm. 
That  is  a question  that  should  be  settled  by  the  society  of  nations. 

There  are  dozens  of  such  questions  which  are  related  to 


the  general  subject  of  "world  peace  and  organization,  but  not  direct- 
ly to  the  subject  of  economic  coercion  as  a substitute  for  war. 
However,  he  who  would  work  for  the  cause  of  substituting  the  boy- 


77 


cott  for  warfare  must  at  the  same  time  work  for  these  other  means 
of  promoting  world  unity  and  harmony,  or  there  can  be  no  sure  and 
permanent  result.  To  be  sure  "the  boycott  is  not  a lovely  weapon", 
neither  does  it  bring  real  peace  which  can  never  exist,  in  an  im- 
perfect society,  but  in  that  it  is  less  destructive  of  life  and 
property  than  is  war,  it  should  be  commended  and  advocated  as  a 
means  of  coercing  offending  nations  until  the  genuine  peace  is 
ushered  in,  whenever  that  is. 


1 Goldsmith,  Robert:  A League  to  Enforce  Pe:  ce , p.135. 


' 


m3 


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Bourne,  Randolph  S.,  ed . : Towards  an  Enduring  Peace. 

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30 


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83 


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